


The Last Green Days of Eden

by Gearsmoke



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), Biblical mythology - Freeform, Crowley has abandonment issues, Fan Art, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Garden of Eden, Genderfluid Characters, Graphic Art, Heaven isn't good/Hell isn't evil, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Spiritual Death, The Raphael thing, Vengeance is mine, crowley was raphael, everyone gets pronouns!, hidden princess - subverted, incorporeal lovemaking, is this too many tags?, mild violence, mostly canon-compliant, plot without porn, plot-heavy storytelling, pre-fall/post-fall, references to sexual abuse, soft demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-28 19:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20784119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gearsmoke/pseuds/Gearsmoke
Summary: Crowley has a secret he doesn't know he's been keeping, and in the midst of mutual exploration, Aziraphale is the one to discover it.  It turns out to be a box of trouble rivaling Pandora's.Raphael is dead, murdered by his own kind, but Crowley is alive, and there must be justice.Some artwork and lots of notes at the end.





	1. Chapter 1

1

-*-

  
It was Crowley who broke the terse silence. Held his hand out to Aziraphale.  
  
“Nobody's watching,” He'd said, after a long night of wine and chocolates and old vinyl records with not a scratch on them, played on a gramophone with better sound and fidelity than a new Bose stereo. They were seated in the back of the bookshop, window-shades drawn against the cold grey of winter, sharing a space lit warmly by antique lamps and candles, their fluctuating illumination sending the room's shadows into a tipsy jig.

Nearly a year behind them since they'd escaped together, since the world had been reset and made just slightly better for it, and both Heaven and Hell had all but sent them letters of dismissal from service.

For a long while they'd worried about retribution (Surely someone would figure out their trick. Surely someone would be thinking of ways to punish them!) Even if they had in fact done almost nothing to avert the Apocalypse, they had made simply perfect scapegoats by being a little too _annoying_ in the opinion of both sides. But then, with all the work required to undo centuries of planning and preparation, it seems they'd been lost in the shuffle. Pests not considered worth the time and effort to swat.

What had started as cohabitation as a practicality gradually became comfortable and relaxed as their fear waned. They'd been indulging their friendship, talking and laughing, drinking, teasing each other perhaps a little more heatedly than they'd intended, and then simply sitting quietly together, watching the candle-flames refract on their drink-rimed wine glasses.  
  
“And?” Aziraphale gave him a sidelong look.  
  
“And.” Crowley echoed, “Angel. I want to _know _you.” Neither a question nor a demand, but an open invitation. The demon's agate eyes gleamed, freshly polished by alcohol and firelight, yet his words were entirely sober. It was not the first time he'd offered, but it was the first time Aziraphale had taken it in reply.

Crowley closed his fingers around the angel's, and nobody was watching.  
  
He let Aziraphale lead him up the stairs to the room where the angel liked to read and think, but almost never sleep. It was dusty, and smelled faintly of tobacco and cookies and warm wood from where sunlight slipped through gaps in the curtains to caress the floorboards. There appeared to be close to as many books up here as below, shoved against the walls all the way up to the sloped ceilings, and the bed had far too many cushions on it for anyone to properly rest there (Some with cutesy things embroidered on them, kittens and butterflies and 'Bless This Mess' and similar glurgy nonsense.) Crowley took pleasure in shoving them onto the floor. They needed the space, he excused.

With a minor exertion of will, they were both in pajamas, barefoot and comfortable, nestling themselves against each other as if to sleep, the demon's head resting on his angel's chest, fingers curling against soft blue cotton. Aziraphale's arm rested around Crowley's slim shoulders, both of them letting their breathing slow to near imperceptible.

An outside observer might have assumed they were both dreaming. A keen observer might have noticed their unnatural stillness and thought the pair had somehow expired in their sleep. But an even _more_ astute observer would have seen a riot of colour flowing out of their quiet bodies. Two incorporeal beings expanding, unfurling to fill the small room with red and blue tendrils, coiling and intertwining, licking together like flames and flowing into rivers and eddies of purple, violet, magenta... Rich hues shot through with bolts of gold and silver as an angel and a demon played and danced and chased each other in and out of the ethereal plane. Both cosmically enormous and infinitesimally small, they slipped effortlessly between atoms in the air, soared across glittering galaxies of dust suspended in a beam of sunlight, collided in brilliant, ecstatic fireworks, sparking off each other with nearly audible laughter, then coming to rest nestled in a valley on the illuminated surface of a grain of dandelion pollen. A million valleys, a million motes in the sunbeam, the multiplicity of subatomic particles occupying every space and none simultaneously.

The act equivalent to lovemaking between angels - and beings that had once been angels, was not very much like sex. There was no desperation or hunger between them, nor was there the transcendent pleasure - rather they shared a fulfilling joy and revelation of the other.

It was what angels had been, what they had done, before they had been made and portioned out into individual entities. Before Earth, before the ignition on the universe had been turned and sent the whole thing in motion. Angels were already there, waiting within the Creator, when They had decided to create them. But when dealing with beings that existed outside of time, the concepts of 'before' and 'after' were blurry at best. Angels had always been, and they had danced in the limitless dawn of their potential. Six-thousand-and-change years later, most of them barely remembered what it had been like, except in fleeting moments when they found someone they could _know_.  
  
If they had not been bound to fragile human bodies, two such entities, sharing a tiny universe in a little attic room in Soho, might have spent weeks (perhaps years) in this manner. However, staying on Earth came with its limitations, and in not all that much time, both began to feel their mortal flesh pulling them back. Without supernatural will to sustain them, their corporations would quickly deteriorate and die. And that would necessitate paperwork.

-*-

Aziraphale opened his eyes to see his beloved friend, sleeping. At that moment of waking, he understood many things as he had not before, as only the give and take of _knowing_ another being would allow. He watched Crowley softly snoring, lips parted just so, oh dear– adorable. Fondness crept up to his face and spread out into an ungoverned, sappy smile.

When he had met Crowley – Crawly. When they had met, Aziraphale believed, like virtually all angels, that demons did not love as angels did. Demons could not sense love, so of course they could not feel it. It took only a handful of interactions with one to learn that he was at least somewhat wrong. He now knew that he had also been, in one way, correct. Crowley did not love as he did.  
  
As an entity whose nature it is to love, Aziraphale's was like a sunrise on a misty morning. He bathed everything around him in a warm glow of affection and grace. His love was unfettered and poured out for every living thing, for art and for beauty and the wonder of the world. Enormous and boundless, and yet indiscriminate and therefore lacking clarity or focus, angels typically did not experience love with either acuteness nor urgency.

When Aziraphale had realized that his love did extend to at least one demon, he'd believed he had to deliberately subdue it, worried about what might happen to Crowley if Hell – or Heaven, for that matter – ever noticed how they'd been faffing about with each other and absolutely not doing their jobs. And so he'd held back to avoid illuminating Crowley with his dawnglow.  
  
But Crowley, oh; Crowley's love was urgent, it was as sharp and hot as a flaming sword, honed to a razor point aimed directly at the angel, and it had been all the poor demon could do to keep from running Aziraphale through. Crowley's love was the pin on a compass, a directive the heartsick creature could not help but follow. It was hungry and unremitting and a little bit frightening to the both of them.  
  
He should have felt out the shape of it long ago, Aziraphale thought, it was old and aching, older than he expected, and it cried out to him, like a mewling, blind creature squirming in the demon's core. He should have been drawn to it from its inception. Yet he'd picked up only a sense of fondness, a hunger for companionship, and a pervasive, subdued sadness set deep in Crowley's marrow.

At least, when Crowley was sober. There were also brief, choking moments when the demon had gotten too drunk (or high, opium was surely _divine,_) to hold himself together, and then it had just been a garbled vomiting of emotions, nonsensical and gone with the adulterants when they were dismissed from his system. He had kept himself hidden otherwise, his ardor buried under snarky comments and cocky grins, for the same reason Aziraphale had withheld his own warmth. They'd been afraid, for good reason, and for no reason at all.  
  
Laying together in the soft, dusty-smelling bed, Aziraphale had at last opened himself completely to his dearest counterpart, his soul a blossom unfolding, allowing Crowley access to every part of his being, even those that were bruised and embarrassing. He let the other feel the fullness of his heart, the satiation of his spirit, he had no reservations left when it came to their union. But Crowley had. There was still one corner of the demon's mind that the angel was not allowed to see. When the smoky wisp of Aziraphale's curiosity had reached out, he was given only the impression that it would do harm to persist, and that was enough incentive to leave it alone. Hell had no doubt left wounds that would do nobody any good to re-open.  
  
A tenuous thread still connected them even when they had pulled away into the lonely boundaries of their own solid flesh. This thread was not new, it had wound itself through their history, always tugging them back toward each other regardless of how many miles or years were wedged between them. Crowley was especially receptive to its pull, faithfully responding to it whenever Aziraphale needed him. Though neither of them knew which had set the hooks of it into the other, Aziraphale had begun to feel it sometime after he'd left the desert, with Crowley distantly following his footprints north to the Mediterranean sea.

-*-

“I wish to know you.” Crowley had said in a language now no longer spoken. He placed his hand on the table, palm up, between his clay goblet and a plate of honeyed fig cakes. They were having a light meal together in a Byzantine inn, on a terrace overlooking a marshy waterway.  
  
“I would,” Aziraphale had replied in like tongue, too quickly, too carelessly, as if he'd been asked to attend the theatre, but had already made plans. “But my superiors would be very upset. I could get into a lot of trouble.” He did not yet think to worry about Crowley, had never even considered what might happen to a demon caught in such an act with an angel, concerned only with his own standing. He had already been reprimanded for poor choices, for letting his heart convince him to break rules and make rash decisions. Heaven did not think much of this dirty, Earthly little angel who soiled himself with food and humans.

The thread between them tugged, and Crowley nodded and looked out over the slow river that would one day be tamed into the Grand Canal. Reed boats and barges pushed by pole up and down its open waters, while people built houses and docks over the muddy banks. The two of them would return here, while Venice grew around the places they liked to meet, over and over, seeking each other. Something about this place felt like home, a nesting ground for their weary souls. Oysters and wine and furtive smiles, walking through hidden places with their hands nearly touching, merely brushing.  
  
And on it went, Crowley would look at Aziraphale the way he'd looked when he'd asked the first time, “I wish to know you.” And the angel would make excuses and shift anxiously and glance up at him with plaintive eyes. In time, Crowley stopped asking aloud, but the words were still there in the lines of his face. They hummed along that connection, vibrating in the air, unanswered.

-*-

As the world matured, and the human population grew and spread into a burgeoning weight across her every continent, the angel and demon settled more firmly into their roles, they had much more to do, with the sheer number of humans to deal with, and the Almighty not making any more angels to keep up. Their meetings became less frequent, and an attempt was made to put more distance between each other, to regard their interactions in what one might call a 'professional' light. They were meant to be enemies, after all; antagonists, rivals. Remaining friends was an increasingly futile fantasy.

Yet that thread remained as secure as ever, to the frustration of both parties. The gravity that drew them back together was as inevitable as the pull of celestial bodies trapped in orbit. Or the last two Cheerios in a bowl of milk.

In Spain, Aziraphale had cried, “Why do you dog me so, fiend!?” He wanted to sound exasperated and assertive, but it came out more petulant. He tracked Crowley's movement around him, like the moon, like the coils of his serpent form. Always circling, always watching, pursuing, _hunting_ him. But it never quite felt like a trap, more like like the embrace of a loved one who never came home.  
  
Crowley told him. Ironically, the oft-maligned Original Deceiver very rarely lied, and never to Aziraphale, whether the angel knew that or not. There was complete sincerity, and profound loss both in the serpent's voice when describing how, after the humans left Eden, and the guardians of the gates were relieved of their posts, the Almighty no longer had any use for the walled garden. They had turned Their attention elsewhere, and Eden had been allowed to wither and rot and be swallowed by the desert.

And Crawly, the serpent who told the truth, who had offered humanity the world and been roundly blamed for how utterly tits-up that had gone, had been left there to watch it die. He, like the garden, had been abandoned by both Heaven and Hell, forgotten, alone, needing to hold on to _something_.

The angel had been kind to him, smiled at him and talked to him like an equal. It was the most kindness he could remember from anyone since he'd been cast down, and with a single protective gesture, the stretch of a sheltering wing, this peculiar angel had laid the first stitch into his heart.

“You're all I had left.” He'd said.

  
-*-

  
Aziraphale, in the present day, is regretful for his cowardice, and thankful for Crowley's respect and patience, he knows the demon's strength and is now and then awed by it. Such a cruelty that angels are taught that demons cannot love, such a bitter lie. But then, how could angels be expected to _kill _demons if they didn't believe in the inherent capital-letter Evil of their rivals? Their irredeemable nature, the utter lack of anything worth preserving?  
  
But Crowley wasn't evil. Far from it, really. When he saw his friend, soul bared, stripped of anger and fear and wickedness (Oh, the demon certainly had wickedness in him. More of a gleeful mischief than outright malice, though he wouldn't bruise the poor thing's ego by saying so,) what he mostly found there was hurt. For himself, for Aziraphale, but mostly for humanity. Crowley had made himself hard and callous to human suffering not very long after they'd left Jerusalem, no longer able to bear the incessant _unfairness_ of it all. He liked people in general, he liked their creativity, their tenacity, and their wondrous capacity for grace. But there were bad ones, and Crowley held onto an unlikely standard of justice. For a long time, one of the demon's greatest pleasures was subtly interfering here and there so that the worst of them got what they deserved. Aziraphale could never quite bring himself to disapprove.

The angel's faith in Heaven dripped away like wax weeping from a candle, melted by the warmth of his _knowing_ Crowley. A little more each time they revisited that act of union, their bodies resting peacefully while they danced as if the universe were brand new and innocent. As if they were innocent.

And Aziraphale _knew,_ as if it were his own, the bruised and faded spark of goodness in Crowley that Hell could not strip away. He sought it out and blew his love into it, willing it to grow and spread and heal what Crowley himself could not.

-*-

When they were in their bodies, Aziraphale luxuriated in the freedom to say things he'd kept to himself for lifetimes upon lifetimes, like 'I love you' and 'You're wonderful' and 'Let me tempt you'. Oh, that last one had become a favorite.  
  
Crowley would laugh and call him _sinful_ in the fondest tone, and let himself be coaxed into tasting a particularly beautiful strawberry, an exceptionally rich chocolate. He gave in to hot rock massages (which were a _delight_, he had to admit), midnight skinny dips, and mirthful pranks on overly stuffy priests (“I've always wanted to do that, the insufferable prig!”Aziraphale had huffed as they'd fled, and Crowley couldn't have been more in love with him.)

As a demon, Crowley had tried just about every sin in the Book, considered it his responsibility to know the tricks of his trade. He didn't care for most of them, he discovered, wasn't at all a fan of murder or shrimp, but he did like a few of the more famous ones. Sloth in particular, oh he adored sloth, and pride, and even some envy – an incomparable tool when working a temptation.

Lust, however, remained a topic untouched, and Aziraphale could not comprehend that at all. It wasn't like his lover eschewed bodily contact – much the opposite, Crowley basked in physical affection like a reptile on a warm stone, hungry for touch, seeking it, finding excuses for casual contact - discreet hand holding, chaste kisses to cheeks and knuckles, knees brushing under tables. And later, with their new freedom, had come cuddling and proper kissing and the weaving of fingers.

Intimacy was welcomed so long as it wasn't bracketed by human sexuality.

And while Aziraphale could live with that, he couldn't help but feel disappointed. He had wanted to share all the pleasures of Earth with Crowley, had harbored guilty fantasies for decades, and now and then, his persistent longing would slip its reins, and he would say something selfish.

“What kind of demon are you?” Aziraphale had mused as Crowley lay beside him on the sofa, head resting against his thigh. He smiled indulgently, running fingers through russet hair that had grown out into smooth, loose curls to the demon's shoulders. His tone light, if mildly teasing. “So kind, so clever, so... clean.”

“Is there something wrong with being clean?” The snippish way he asked betrayed that there must have been, in _someone_'s no-doubt-demonic opinion.  
  
“No, not at all, I very much prefer it. But it's not exactly Hell's style. Honestly, I thought I was fussy until I saw your flat. I've never seen a place so neat and sterile, except for -” A moment of awareness quieted Aziraphale, leaving the thought unfinished.  
  
“Heaven.” Crowley supplied, easily guessing.  
  
The angel made an awkward sound of acknowledgment, “Well. Yes. It is very much like that. The place could use some homey touches, in my opinion.”  
  
A subtle snort, “Heaven or my flat?”

Aziraphale chuckled and pointedly didn't answer that. “You're really nothing like any other demon, are you?” He meant more than simply aesthetics or hygiene, really, but kept himself on a single track. “But, I suppose, if you're meant to be tempting people, seducing them... can't imagine that would be easy if you were all smelly and, and... pustulent.”

Crowley made a face, which Aziraphale could not see, but he could feel in the way the demon's scalp tensed under his fingertips. “That's ironic.”

“Why's that, dear?” The angel ran a manicured fingertip around the snake sigil and followed it down a slender jaw.  
  
Crowley shivered and let out a slow breath. “That I'm supposed to incite that kind of desire when I don't feel any... That's ironic.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale's hand stilled, he wondered if his caresses were unwelcome. “I'm sorry. I found it very pleasant, myself.”

The demon's body twitched in surprise, “You've had sex? With humans?”  
  
“Well, yes. Only a few times; some of the temptations you passed on to me turned out to require more convincing arguments than I'd anticipated.”

Crowley snagged elegant fingers into the fabric of Aziraphale's trousers, below the knee, “Oh. Angel, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to give you those.”  
  
“Don't be. I didn't mind at all. Many of the assignments you gave me were, dare I say, quite fun.”

“Oh. Yes, right. You said it was pleasant.” He sounded, to Aziraphale's ear, disappointed.  
  
The angel took his hand away from Crowley's hair entirely, “Is that wrong?”

“No. Of course not. Just, you know, didn't expect you to... enjoy that sort of thing.” He wanted to keep his tone light, but his throat tightened it into a sharp croak.

Aziraphale pouted, “But you do it, surely you do. You've tempted me terribly, with how you walk, and your horrible trousers, and asking me to _eat_ while you sprawl there like...”

Like a laid table, the angel thought, the slide of his hips, the way he spread his thighs like rumors: 'look, it's me, I'm the meal, devour me!'. “Like you do!”  
  
“I do not!” Crowley sat up and looked at the angel, indignant. His shades were on the table and his xanthic eyes were sharp and critical, “What's wrong with my trousers?”  
  
“They're impossible to get out of, for one thing. I looked utterly ridiculous trying to remain 'cool' while getting them off in front of half of Hell!”  
  
Crowley rolled his eyes, “Why didn't you just miracle them off? Why were you stripping me, anyway?”  
  
“I didn't want to get them wet. And I was worried that if I used a miracle, they'd know it was angelic power and not demonic.”

The demon had to admit, that sounded reasonable. “Did you, er...?”

“I left your pants on, if that's what you're asking.”

Crowley grunted something that sounded like 'Thank you', though with far fewer words. “I wasn't trying to seduce you, angel. My body just does things.”  
  
“Things like...?” The insinuation Aziraphale managed to inject into those two words would have made Crowley proud if they hadn't been directed at him, but at the moment he felt a pang of irritation over the angel's greedy interest.

“Shut up. Look. Maybe it wants... things. Maybe I want things. Maybe I just want to make you happy. I haven't worked that out.” A momentary quiet as the demon paused in thought, selecting his words.

“They get to have something wonderful, but I don't. I never have.” He glanced sidelong at his partner, his other half, and could see a raw conflict of emotions there. Sadness, empathy, but mostly confusion. 

-*-

Aziraphale didn't understand. Well of course he didn't, Crowley thought. He hadn't been there to see the demon wander the desert, lost and aimless but for the tug in his heart, not knowing anything but a thin line of hope that he'd get to see that friendly, kind angel again. Hadn't seen the way, when they'd finally meet, a smile would cut into his tender, hell-burned soul and fill the wound with light.

Or the million times Crowley had thought about touching and tasting and using all his devilish talent to tempt the angel to take him, have him, make something better out of the pieces of him. Or, when he had at last accepted the space between them, how he had pushed that feeling, all that acrid want, deep into a cavity hollowed somewhere around the back of his foot.  
  
How that hollow ached every time Aziraphale called to him, brought him forth from slumber like a lily from the earth, in fearful need or simply desire for his company, Crowley would rise and answer. That pull had become more frequent, more intense in recent centuries – The angel sought out his own excuses. Save me! Come for me! I need you! But not like you want him, the demon told himself, accepted it as truth, and took what he was given with what vestige of grace he still possessed.  
  
Did the angel taste the bitterness of his rejections when he spat them in Crowley's face? Did he gag on them as the demon had? Swallow them and internalize them in the same way? Did the angel know how devastating it was when he poured hope into Crowley's shaking hands only to slap it away again before the other could close his fingers around it? It was a sad, sick dance they were caught in, and it was not _fair_. (Nothing ever was, you simple creature, nothing was ever supposed to be, it was all rigged from the start.)  
  
In the early seventeenth century, when the rise of Puritanism presented so much lush opportunity, Crowley had begun to take the sort of work that led him into the beds of humans. Many of them selfish and sadistic, already brilliantly wicked, running laughing into their own damnation – it would only take one more step to usher them past the point of possible redemption. He hardly had to convince such creatures to place their harsh hands and belittling names upon him. These had, in their minds and mouths, made a whore of him, a dog, a _thing_, and Crowley had fought the urge to burn them to cinders as they shoved their blood-hot flesh into his. He couldn't smite them, it wasn't his place. They were just humans, just animals, like any other mortal creature that eventually lies down to feed the earth. If they were wicked, it was really their Creator's fault. In the end, all of this was.  
  
He could feel the spark of divinity They had sewn into these animals, he had seen them be tender and careful with each other, and he still loved them somehow. In this, he had allowed himself to be hurt, scarred by the laughable irony of free will and his own envy for what humans felt when they succumbed to him; the delirious heights of emotion and wonder and pleasure he could so easily incite, but never have for himself.

Crowley sulked, “It isn't fair.”

-*-

“It isn't fair.” He'd said, looking up at a brilliant night sky.

“I know.” Aziraphale sighed, they'd had this conversation before, several times, he knew what was next.

The two of them were sitting together on a blanket, on a hill, in a wood overlooking a mirror-still lake. Far enough from the city to see the stars. The nights had started to go chilly at the tail end of summer, but creatures like them didn't much feel the cold. Aziraphale had packed a lunch for himself, and chocolates and wine for Crowley, all long gone.  
  
“You're more of a sinner than I ever was,” The demon's face creased around the mouth, pouting. “Why did I fall, but not you? Why was I thrown down like- like trash… for nothing!? For caring about what They created me to care about? N'body up there listens to me anymore, I can pray and pray, and I'll never get an answer. S'bloody unfair.”  
  
The first time they'd had this conversation, which had also accompanied two bottles of red wine and a clear night sky, Aziraphale had been mildly insulted, but by this point it was a script he knew well. He could have pointed out that he didn't sin, not really, because those rules were made for humans, and never actually applied to angels – or demons for that matter. Instead he replied with a pacifying, “Yes, it is, love.”  
  
“M'sorry, angel. I wouldn't want you to fall. You're a very good angel, so good. Much better than those... those guys.” Crowley gestured upward with a specific, impolite finger. Within minutes, his anger had, once again, settled back into resignation. He exhaled weightily, leaned against Aziraphale's shoulder and tilted his head upward.  
  
“I made those stars, you know. Those ones.” It was usually a barely-visible cluster in Sagittarius that the demon pointed out. Sometimes it was another.

“Yes, you've told me.” Aziraphale replied dutifully, as he'd replied each time they'd done this. He'd always left it at that, but for some reason, after their relationship had changed course, the comment bothered him. “I wish you wouldn't.”  
  
“Why not?”

The angel chewed lightly at the inside of his cheek for two, three seconds. Considering censoring himself, and then deciding his honesty would be complete. “You couldn't have created stars, Crowley. You couldn't have, it's not possible.” Surely the demon knew that, he didn't really think he'd been there, did he? Aziraphale didn't want to accuse him of lying, but the alternative - “You don't need to try to impress me.”

There was a long, tense silence, and the voice that replied was thin and hurt, he sputtered defensively, “Buh- ngh- ffh! I'm not trying to_ impress _you! I was there, I remember... holding them in my hands, so many of them... I lost count.”  
  
“Stop it, Crowley. Only the Archangels were present for Creation. The rest of us were made afterward. You would have had to have been a - well. Well, that's... silly.” Aziraphale regretted his words before he'd finished the last of them, the look on Crowley's face was not at all funny.

The demon's eyes were wide and dark, the yellow spreading outward to the edges of his sclerae, “No, no, of course... of course not. I just- I,” His irises contracted again, and he said, calmly, “What were we talking about?”

"You were telling me about the stars.”

“Oh... What about them?”

Celestial eyes narrowed, “You were bragging about making some of them.”

Crowley's voice was distant, quiet, “Did I? I don't remember...”  
  
Aziraphale felt like something cold had slid into his spine, a wretchedness sinking into his gut. He instantly rescinded his earlier notion about honesty, forcing his face to remain neutral. “I suppose it's not important.” He mumbled, although he was certain it was very important.

  
-*-

The way Crowley had simply blanked out of their conversation shouldn't have bothered Aziraphale as much as it did, surely. The demon often got lost in his own head while being spoken to, it was just a part of Crowley; he was a thinker. Not that his thoughts were particularly brilliant, but he liked to think them. Something about the context, the way it happened, the look in the demon's eyes – wrong. Wrong and upsetting and more wrong, Aziraphale fretted. Had it always been that way, and he'd just never noticed? How much had Crowley simply erased even as it slipped from the demon's clever tongue?

It seemed impolite to bring it up, like the anxiety and analysis was an overreaction. Crowley had always been a little... flaky. The demon lost track of how his limbs and mouth worked, so why not conversations as well? He tried to convince himself of this, but it wasn't the truth, and lies refused to settle well with Aziraphale.

A subtle divide began to grow between them, a thin layer of defensiveness on both sides. Nothing they felt worth complaining about, but over which they'd find themselves gazing apprehensively across a vast expanse of table or sofa or park bench, wishing the other would start a reconciliation. They gradually spent more time apart; days without talking, weeks without visiting. The most time they'd been apart since... well, since before Crowley had called him about the ill-fated apocalypse. They told themselves this was healthy, normal; there were no arguments, nothing they could put a finger on to say 'here, this is a problem', and so there wasn't a problem. They still had dinner together, albeit a little less frequently, still retired to the bookshop at night and drank and laughed, but there was simply a sense of hesitation now. It was almost like they were under supernatural scrutiny again, and neither of them much liked it.

When Crowley next suggested they go upstairs, Aziraphale nearly refused. His worry felt like a rot at the edges of his soul, and he loathed the thought of exposing his dearest friend to that. But he also knew they couldn't carry on like _this_. Aziraphale took the offered hand.

-*-

In their incorporeal forms, communication was instantaneous, intimate, yet abstract. They shared feelings and ideas, but not words, not specific thoughts – Aziraphale's desire to enter Crowley's mind was met with a hesitant anxiety, then trusting permission. Both loving and shy, the demon drew him in deeper, red mingling with blue. As Aziraphale flowed through him, Crowley became restless, playfully flitting and spinning about, drawing glowing trails around Aziraphale's awareness, perhaps intending to distract, but only succeeding in disorienting the angel.

Abruptly, unexpectedly, Aziraphale's mind brushed against the demon's walled-off region, a clumsy slip, and in the quantum fraction of time before he withdrew from it, he found himself momentarily seeing – as clearly as if he had physical vision – the true vastness of what was within that place. It was like glimpsing an abyss, a bottomless void where something had been ripped out. He could sense a stifled wave of pain, and turned his attention back to his beloved demon. Crowley's ethereal manifestation had already begun to shrink back, retreating from contact - and then the angel blinked himself awake, back in his body again. Aziraphale looked down at Crowley, who had turned away from him, breathing roughly.  
  
The wall, the angel knew, with absolute certainty, had not been put there by Crowley.

Aziraphale reached out, intending to comfort with a touch, and then hesitated. Best to leave him alone for a while. Instead, he pulled a blanket over the demon, and went downstairs to put a fresh pot on and think.

An agent of Hell? No, he dismissed that idea, it didn't fit, what he'd felt wasn't demonic magic, it was too old, too vast. The power had a clean, clear purpose, without infernal baggage like malice or corruption, and it had held fast to that purpose for thousands of years.

Heaven, then, it stood to reason. Why, though? What could Crowley possibly have hidden inside him that would require Heaven's intervention? Aziraphale's mind offered possibilities, none of them good. Was it a method of spying on them? Interfering with the demon's free will? Perhaps something worse that might be used against them. Oh, no, the angel frowned, that simply would not do.

  
-*-

Aziraphale cooked breakfast, taking peace of mind from doing something mundane and domestic. He put the tea on, the kettle's familiar whistling would rouse his demonic other, and prepared fried oatcakes and eggs. He had rarely cooked before, but that didn't mean he wasn't able, and it was a pleasant enough activity, becoming a comfortable routine, something to do while they waited for something, _anything_, to happen.

At least money hadn't been much of a concern, mostly because of Crowley's meddling in stock markets in the 70s; and without any need for excuses or income, the shop had been closed for several months. Even regular browsers who hadn't been entirely convinced to stay out (because they didn't try to buy anything, they just liked looking, and that was alright,) no longer bothered to look in the windows.

Crowley appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, still in his satin sleepwear, his glasses slightly askew, slouching against the jamb as if he were especially susceptible to gravity. “Oh, tea, not an air raid, then.” He said in that lilting way that came over him when he wasn't quite awake or sober. That morning it was both, which was his penance for drinking and then forgetting to remove it from his system before falling asleep.  
  
“Do you want eggs, dear?”  
  
“One egg. In a glass, with vodka and hot sauce.” Well, it was very nearly technically food.  
  
Aziraphale tutted, “Do you want me to fix you up?”  
  
“Oh, would you?” He had never gotten the hang of healing, especially when his head was throbbing as if his own heart had been stuffed into it. But it wasn't really a demon's forte, so he hadn't expected to be good at it. Crowley moaned happily as the angel's cool palm passed over his forehead and scalp, a blissful cessation of pain in its wake. “ You're a wonder, angel... But I'd still like the drink,” he confessed.

A little while later, Aziraphale was eating his oatcakes, and Crowley was tilting his almost-empty glass back and forth and watching a snotty glob of albumen and Tabasco slide around in the bottom. It seemed like a good time, the angel decided. Good as any.

“We need to talk, Crowley. It's about that walled-up place you have, inside you.” He began, not bothering with vagueness.  
  
Crowley put the glass down abruptly, a sharp sound against the tabletop. “No. I, we... why?!” His tone taking on the defensiveness of a hurt child. Too fast, too fast, Aziraphale chided himself. Of course he'd be defensive of such an old wound. Be gentle.

The angel picked up his tea and cradled the mug in both hands, immaculate fingers caressing its porcelain wings. “I just mean,” He searched himself for the best words, the softest. “I have concerns about it, about you.”

“Well you shouldn't! It's a private thing, Aziraphale.” Over-enunciating the name to punctuate his opinion on the subject, “You know. Entirely, absolutely. I do.” The words still caught, still tasted forbidden in his throat, “I love you, angel. But I should be allowed to keep things to myself.”

“Yes, of course, but I mean... I haven't been clear enough.” Fingertips drummed on white porcelain, “I'm afraid, Crowley. I touched it, and I saw something that I probably shouldn't have, and I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to. But those aren't your walls.”

“Wh- Don't be silly, angel. It's, well, Falling was awful, you can't blame me for compartmentalizing.”

Aziraphale eyed his companion as he swallowed a mouthful of tea, then told him, “You're not listening. You did not put that barrier there, I could tell the second I felt it. The whole thing reeks of Heaven, someone else did this to you.”

Crowley frowned at the table, “Why would anyone do that?”  
  
“Well that's what I'm getting at!” Exasperation was too easy when he didn't intend it. Aziraphale moderated his tone, “They wanted to hide something from you. Don't you think we should know what it is? In case... in case it's dangerous?”  
  
“Oh, oh, well.” The slim redhead dithered, “No, of course. N- Yes.” Trying out different answers until the angel's expression unpinched itself. “How?”  
  
“Oh, dearest, I own a building full of magical knowledge. We will find a way.” 

-*-


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the top ten things Aziraphale loves, reading is probably number three.

2

Finding the answer hadn't been difficult at all. He'd gone diving in with relish, and was almost disappointed when he'd only gotten three books in and already he'd cracked it – It did help that he kept meticulous records and cross-references, and was deservedly proud of that.

However, enacting the solution, _that_ was going to be difficult. The magical barriers were technically part of Crowley, and if he could claim them, take ownership of them, he could affect them. But actually _doing _that would be a feat of enormous willpower. Aziraphale didn't know if he would have the strength if it were him in that position, yet he was certain, sure as faith, that Crowley would.  
  
“It would be like using a limb you didn't know you had,” The angel had explained, “Not just moving it, but moving in a specific way, like trying to paint a masterpiece with your toes, if you'd never had toes before. Oh, I'm not explaining this well, am I?”

“No. It's fine, I think I get it. What if I don't do it right? What would happen?”

“Not much, I wouldn't expect. Maybe a headache.” Leafing through his book, he tried to find references to safeguards or even traps that might have been worked into the barrier. “You just need to _want _it, to stop rejecting it, and it will become yours.”

“As simple as that?”

“Moving a mountain is simple if you phrase it right.”

-*-

Aziraphale continued his reading in bed as he waited for Crowley to join him. He wanted to know as much about what they were about to get into as possible, propping himself up on a half-dozen lacy cushions with the book resting on his belly, while his counterpart showered. He did not remember having a shower, but he could hear the water running, felt a soft, moist heat billowing from the spaces around the door, scented with fruit and wood, and accepted the reality of having one at the moment.

And then his love emerged, damp and bright, wrapped in a towel and luxurious warmth, and Aziraphale put the book aside to let Crowley climb into his arms. The heat radiating through his pyjamas was deliciously soothing, and they soon slipped from their flesh together.  
  
Getting Crowley to take ownership of the angel-made barrier was not an easy or fast process, it would require several sessions. Concentration, control, nearly untenable concepts when all they wanted to do was fly together with utter abandon. Perhaps it helped that there was still a veil of caution between them, letting them resist that urge and focus on their task. Aziraphale did not go near the barrier while Crowley was navigating it, merely keeping the demon's mind steady, bolstering his strength. Each time they came out of it tired, frustrated, hopeful that they'd made some progress.

And then it had come together, like a light going on, the barrier changed, it felt different – a vibration shifting pitch. Crowley still could not remove it, but if he put his mind to it, he could bend and stretch it. And oh, then, the clever thing, he figured out how to loop himself into the immaterial wall and force a gap. Just a small hole, and only for a moment, but there it was. Aziraphale had tried to see what was inside, but there had been only a sightless sense of the same void he had felt when he'd brushed against it.

Crowley spent the next few days practicing while Aziraphale remained in his own body, holding his demon's lax hand, their fingers intertwined. There had come a moment, then, where he had opened his brimstone eyes, pupils wide, and told the angel, “I think I'm ready.” They had taken a few days to rest, build up their mental strength, and finally they were there, on the brink of the unknown.

Moving the cushions to a wingchair in the corner, thus depriving Crowley of the joy of throwing them to the floor, Aziraphale stretched out and waited, ankles crossed, reading glasses and book on the bedside table. It really was remarkable how fully the bookshop had been restored. Every knothole in the woodwork, every cobweb in the windows, the reassuring smell. Here and there, tiny things had been changed, some to his delight, others not so much, but he couldn't be displeased with any of it, to have his home back at all was a gift beyond measure.  
  
He'd very nearly packed the whole thing up and moved, after their trials and attempted executions. He wasn't sure about Hell, but Heaven was fully familiar with his little shop. Would going elsewhere help? Could one hide from Heaven? Ultimately Aziraphale had decided to stay and defend what was his, if it came to it. And it hadn't. Not that the angel was complaining, of course, but the whole thing felt vaguely anticlimactic.  
  
There was a metallic squeak, and the sound of water in the bathroom dropped off. Crowley emerged in white towels, and as he dried himself and changed into soft pajamas, Aziraphale couldn't help but admire the shape of the demon's body, how he managed to be so slim without being frail, a false delicateness, all sinew and slip. The original tempter indeed. The angel fluttered his lashes when his gaze was met by curious yellow eyes, unable to help but smile. He could look at his love, even if they weren't intimate in all the ways he'd like, he could still_ look_, couldn't he?

The demon's expression was indulgent in the way it often was when he caught his companion wanting something. He'd give in to very nearly any desire Aziraphale might have, were he asked, and with that, the trust that he wouldn't be asked to do something he wouldn't want. Hair still damp, Crowley climbed into bed and fitted himself into the curve of Aziraphale's body, ear pressed in over the angel's heart and lithe arms about his reassuringly solid waist.

Pressing a light kiss to his beloved's temple, Aziraphale was rewarded by the upward tilt of Crowley's jaw, seeking another, another. Their kisses nearly chaste, but full of affection, until the demon's eyes threatened to overflow from happiness and he tucked his head back down, warm and relaxed, letting his breathing slow and loosening the bonds holding him in his body. The angel in his arms was still struggling with concern, and so he soothed himself by carding his fingers through lush chestnut locks until he felt enough at ease.

Leaving his flesh, Aziraphale rose into the embrace of his lover's ethereal being, letting it surround him completely and allowing himself to be drawn into the quiet, private parts of Crowley's mind. His perception of the room around them faded, and he was enveloped in velvety darkness. The demon's presence surrounded him, guided him with glinting lights, like stars, but much closer and smaller. All around him were the faint edges of shapes illuminated by the tiny lights, black against black, but the angel could swear they were leaves.

The path of stars urged Aziraphale on, and in following, he lost his sense of time, or how long he'd been walking through the dark, carefully putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, soft leaves brushing against his hands, his wings, until he'd lost track of where he was, where he was going. But the sense of love and safety that surrounded him kept him from worrying. Wherever he was being led to, it was where he was meant to be.

He squinted and looked down at his hands, puzzled. He had been incorporeal when he'd started this journey, hadn't he? But now he could feel his body, slightly fuzzy around the edges, subtly glowing in the dark. He felt himself grow heavier, solidifying as he continued forward.  
  
And then, gradually, a brighter light appeared before the angel, growing in size and intensity as he approached it, until he had to raise his hands to shield his eyes.

He stepped out of the dark forest and into a sunlit glade. When he was in his ethereal form, his perception of the material world lacked the definition of physical senses. Objects became vibrating patterns of atoms and space, to be ignored or toyed with at his whim, sensed in ways entirely divorced from fleshly sensory organs like eyes or ears, or noses for that matter.  
  
But here he was, standing, on his own feet, in a place that felt as real as anywhere he'd ever been. Sunlight filtered down through leafy boughs swaying in only the faintest of breezes, and the mingled scent of every flower he had ever heard of wafted on it. He knew this place, that scent.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and inhaled, listening. Something was wrong. The garden was so vividly the same, the soft, fragrant wind, the warm sun, just as it had been, but it was lacking something, and it took a moment for the angel to discern what.  
  
When he had been there, the first time, Eden had been teeming with living creatures and their sounds, birds filled the sky with their song, small burrowing things rustled in the undergrowth, but here there was only silence, stillness but for the soft movement of the air.  
  
This was not, he noted, an oppressive quiet; It was anticipatory.

He walked further into the garden, his bare feet muffled by the moss and grass underfoot. He was barefoot, but not naked, wearing a simple, soft grey tunic of the sort he'd been given when he was first made. Exactly the same, in fact, complete with the gold-and-pearl winged brooch at his clavicle.

How many times had he walked these dappled paths, he wondered. He felt his mind drift, caught himself wondering what the humans will think of this place, when the Almighty creates them...  
  
He shook his head, 'That's already happened!' Aziraphale thought, focusing on the present, 'Six thousand years ago. And this beautiful place has been gone for nearly as many.' He stopped and took another deep breath, steadying himself. The garden was trying to pull him back, return him to that long-ago time before he'd known anything about death or pain or cruelty. And oh, that sounded so nice...  
  
There was a voice, he now noticed. A soft, melodic singing, angelic singing. All angels sang, they were created to sing - but even to his ears, this was a uniquely beautiful voice. Again, Aziraphale followed where he was led, by notes this time instead of stars.

An angel was kneeling in a verdant clearing, their back turned toward where Aziraphale was approaching, white wings arched gracefully over a flowerbed of exquisite beauty. Except... that around where they knelt, many of the plants were sickly and brown. Their wings spread to help keep balance as they reached out and touched one of the damaged leaves, restoring the plant to health and bloom. They were singing softly to the garden, the song oddly lulling and restoring at the same time.  
  
“Hello,” Aziraphale said, not too loudly, not wanting to startle the crooning angel.

The singing stopped, and the angel looked up, and Aziraphale was only very slightly surprised to see Crowley's face. Only slightly, because this was not Crowley. This angel looked at him with gleaming golden eyes, round-pupiled and richly hued, flecked through with turquoise. Their face, noticably softer than the demon's, dappled with tiny gold specks, and their hair, like liquid copper, fiery and bright, flowed in a wild yet untangling cascade to trail across the forest floor. As Aziraphale drew closer and the angel stood, he became aware that this being was also far larger than Crowley; not simply taller or heavier, but scaled up by nearly a foot, towering over the blond angel's not-so-meager corporation.  
  
“Er, hello.” Aziraphale repeated,  
  
“Oh.” It was like, yet not like Crowley's voice. Lacking the rough accent, “Hello, what are you doing here? You weren't supposed to be here yet!” They smiled delightedly, and Aziraphale felt as if he was being drowned in it. Where his love was a misty morning, this being offered the blinding brilliance of a noonday sun. Aziraphale knew, as this impression washed over him and faded, that he was in the presence of something that was simply not possible.  
  
“Have you come to help me?” Asked the garden angel. “Please say yes. I've been at this for so long.” They reached out to heal another dying plant, and from where he stood, Aziraphale could see that as they did, one of the ferns nearby, out of the gardener's view, began to fade and droop.  
  
He could not reply, could not work his way through the confusion to speak. Simply giving a small, dumbfounded nod before crouching as the copper-haired angel did and summoning a healing miracle toward the plant that had just turned brown, following a hunch, he turned quickly, in time to see a previously vibrant gloxinia shrivel and drop its petals. A futile task, then, never meant to be completed.  
  
“I'm so excited,” the garden angel told him, “The Almighty is going to make something new, something for us to love, and has asked me to make a place ready for them. I do hope they like it. I've had my other assistant making animals, so many animals. Birds and fish and butterflies – I love the butterflies.” They turned their head, and Aziraphale could see a black snake coiled in a familiar spot by the angel's ear, even this was different. Where Crowley's serpent was red-bellied and poised to strike, this snake's belly was gold, and its body was looped passively around a stave or rod. Aziraphale recognized the symbol, he'd seen it many times, over centuries, all around the world, used by healers and chemists to advertise their craft.

Something stirred in Aziraphale's memory, as if he should know who this angel is. Well, he should,_ shouldn't _he? A being like this was no mere choir-angel, not one of the heavenly throng, he must absolutely, certainly know who he was looking at. But only one name came to him.

“Crowley?”  
  
“I'm sorry?” replied the angel who was not Crowley.  
  
Aziraphale stood, his purpose had snapped back into clarity when he'd said the name, “No, no, I'm sorry. Nothing. I need to go.”  
  
“Oh, that's unfortunate. If you must. I hope you come back soon. Grace be with you, little brother.”

Again, that starlit smile, its effect less dazzling only because Aziraphale expected it. Turning away, he hurried back the way he'd arrived. The Principality's head buzzed, he felt like he had a skull full of wasps, making it difficult to think clearly. Leaving the garden took far less time than entering it, almost as if it wanted to be rid of him, and his form blurred into the familiar blue glow of incorporeality before returning to his human flesh. When he sat up in his room, Crowley was not in the bedroom with him.

-*-

Crowley had left a while ago, returning to his body and snapping himself dressed as soon as Aziraphale had emerged from within his being. He hadn't meant to leave like that, but he found himself walking out the bookshop and getting into his car as if on auto-cruise.

The experience had been too much, overwhelming and invasive, and he needed to escape, collect himself, recover. The demon returned to his apartment, feeling the uncomfortable starkness of it more keenly than he was used to. The place was spotless, as it always was, but he tried to do some sort of tidying-up anyway, moving things on his desk, on shelves, and then putting everything back where they had been. Staring for several minutes at the untouched plates in his kitchen cabinet, and fiddling with his music collection. Everything was digital now, he mused, fingertip tracing the edge of a jewel case, nobody bought CDs anymore... Maybe he should get rid of these, just keep a few of his favorites... a few of Aziraphale's favorites. He slipped a copy of T-Rex's 'Electric Warrior' (solidly in the former category) into the player, the acoustic space greedily turning the music into a reverberating envelope of sound. His movements settled into the heartbeat bass of 'Mambo Sun' as he reclaimed his own territory.

A change of clothes, first. They're all the same, really, black and almost-black and a few interesting textures, a tease of silver or red. Less rumpled, then, less smelling of dust and books and _angel_. Scratch that - another shower, first, yes. Wash the smell from his skin, his hair. Turn the hot water all the way up and let the heat that fails to scald him remind him of what he is.

Dressed again, he toured his rooms. He couldn't really call it a home, he'd never had... Was Heaven ever a home? He couldn't recall. Stepping into his green-washed sunroom, the gust of moist, fecund air soothed him and for just a moment, reminded him of... Oh.

One of his orchids was yellowing, he noticed, snapping out of thought. He'd been gone only a few days, and felt, as he always did, betrayed by any of his plants that didn't stay healthy and beautiful.

The anger he felt rising in his chest, that usually twisted itself into yelling and threats, suddenly went flat. Crowley blinked, breathed deep, and found himself calm. He knew exactly where that rage was coming from. He'd always known, he'd just refused to address it.  
  
Why was he remembering this _now_?

Eden, its creatures fleeing or dying, its walls toppling into the sand. The Tree of Life had been uprooted and returned to Heaven, sealed away in a vault somewhere, and all the green things it had sustained were left to rot. And he could do nothing to stop it. He could do nothing at all but walk away into the desert, following the tug of an unknowable thread.  
  
God told the angels there was justice in the universe. God told them there was judgment. But They was so cruelly unfair. They absolutely played games with the Universe, and with humans, and with him.

The little plant had failed, it was expected to be perfect, and it had fallen short. It had to be cast out.

Crowley picked up the orchid and removed its decorative clay pot cover. He didn't have the energy to properly reprimand it, simply saying 'I did warn you.' Quiet and detached, his words were as still as effective as any tirade. The demon took the small orchid with him to the kitchen, turned on the garbage disposal, and left the apartment.

Every so often, the caretakers at Kew Gardens would notice they had more specimens than they were supposed to, thirteen alocasias when they were sure they'd planted a dozen, a staghorn fern that wasn't there the day before, or a shy, slightly yellowing _Dendrobium _orchid hiding in a display of _Phalaenopsis_.

Plants, having a very poor grasp of time, did not know to question why it took their master a full hour to dispose of one of their failed peers.  
  
As soon as Crowley returned to the flat, plastic pot in hand, his phone rang.

-*-

“Well, if you're sure you're alright,” Fingers tight around the middle of the pristine Bakelite handset, “I just wish you'd left me a note or something. It was unsettling to wake up and find you gone – Well yes, I can understand that. No, no - Yes, I'll be here. Take as much time as you need.”  
  
Aziraphale put the handset into its cradle and breathed more evenly, able to stop panicking, at least. He couldn't be sure, but it didn't seem as though Crowley had seen any of what he had; the silent garden, the tall, shining angel. The demon was shaken, that was certain, but he only mentioned feelings, exhaustion. Opening the wall for him had taken a heavy toll on Crowley, who'd muttered an apology for worrying the angel.

What _had_ Aziraphale seen, behind that barrier? More importantly, _who_?  
  
After perusing his section on Heavenly lore and records, books he already knew well, there really wasn't anything else for it. He'd have to consult other sources – sources that Aziraphale did not quite trust himself with.  
  
The bookshop had one room that nobody, not even the original architects knew existed. He descended the steps and made his way to the very back of the stacks, where a single reading chair waited at an inviting angle on a beautiful, slightly dirty Persian rug, dating back to when there was actually a Persia.

Aziraphale moved the chair and rolled back the rug. They were so convenient for hiding things under, however this one revealed not a painted circle, but a trapdoor. The door stuck stubbornly, having not been opened in at least a decade; Angels, however, are quite a bit stronger than humans, and the hinges whined and gave when Aziraphale put his back into it. A cloud of dust rising from the floorboards as a soft rush of cool air came up from the cellar. He picked up a lit candle-lantern and descended the wooden staircase.

It was not a large room, but it had been created to resist any and all hint of moisture, mold, mildew, or – saints forbid – booklice. This was where Aziraphale kept the books that no human should lay eyes on, much less read. Books that even other angels would both covet and fear. Forbidden knowledge, old and sacred and volatile.  
  
Knowledge of this sort was, in a way, alive. It had will, it wanted to escape and spread. Each volume was kept in a box, locked and marked to keep the restless words inside at peace. The Principality considered it a responsibility to obtain and protect as many of these books as he could. Or, more accurately, protect the world from these books.

Aziraphale held the key in his palm as he walked along the shelves, selecting one of the boxes and carrying it to a rosewood desk that shone as if newly polished. He put the lantern down to unlock and lift the lid, take the book out. Holding it like a newborn, or a scorpion. He lay the book down, a pair of carved supports keeping the covers from falling all the way back as he opened it to the index. The language was old, but the information flowed into him as if he were hearing a voice translate it as he read. It was angel-script, from the library of Babel - instantly understood by whomever read it, and thus infinitely rare. Settling into a hard wooden chair, the angel summoned a cup of tea (Darjeeling, with milk and honey,) and prepared himself for a long night.

-*-

It wasn't like he wanted to hurt Aziraphale. Although he sort of did, a cold-blooded instinct to lash out in reaction to being hurt, himself. Even if it wasn't really the angel's fault, suffering had resulted from his actions. Sleep had come and gone again, refusing to stay with him, and Crowley had tired of laying there, too warm and restless, gotten up and resumed the aimless patrol of his apartment. It felt like a cage, but he had no will to leave it, as if mere physical walls could contain his grievances.

Stupid, stupid, you should have never gotten in so deep, he chided himself. Demons don't _love_. But then, angels don't _lust_, and yet there they were, in defiance of the supposed order of things. Did the other demons ever love? Was it simply an edict and not a foundational truth that they didn't?  
  
It would be worse if they did, Crowley thought. Most of them had taken so strongly to that 'Evil, wicked, vicious, rarrrh!' schtick, so entrenched in their own misery and resentment that they tolerated each other at best. There wasn't anyone in Hell he could talk to about these things.  
  
Except once, perhaps. Crowley had felt drawn to a solitary, quiet demon who seemed more sad than angry, a being of unspoken dissatisfaction who had named himself Murmur; who had ash-coloured hair, eyes the pale jade of a luna moth's wings, and who looked like he was always covered in a fine layer of dust. Murmur worked dutifully and efficiently without complaint, and observed the suffering of the damned without satisfaction.

They had been social for a while, meeting up for drinks and conversation when Crowley visited hell to give an accounting of himself (and often a Powerpoint presentation, one of which was on the successful launch of Powerpoint itself, beautifully designed to make millions of office workers want to pitch their entire console out a window.)

Crowley was never sure if he was actually fond of Murmur, or if it was simply being in Hell, the awfulness of it, the loneliness, that made him yearn to see the one single being he knew who wasn't entirely filled with self-pity and malice. Occasionally Murmur would say something that Crowley didn't understand, but he didn't mind, he simply enjoyed having someone to talk to. To be able to laugh and smile and feel something like camaraderie in a place that specialized in fostering isolation in its denizens. It felt a little like scoring a point on Hell.

But the house, as everyone knows, always wins.

Around the end of the Nineteenth century, Murmur was assigned to Earth, to the small, content country of Belgium. He was to become part of the new King Leopold's retinue, and make some offhand comments now and then that would nudge the course of future politics in the region in a desirable direction. It sounded like more of the sewing of secularism that was popular in Scandinavia at the time, and had always been a fun gig, copious alcohol and assorted debauchery to be enjoyed.  
  
Crowley didn't see Murmur again until 1944. But really, he never saw his sad-eyed, sympathetic drinking buddy again. There was far more _Hell _in this Murmur, leggy black veins under the skin around his eyes, pale hair swept back into insect-like wings, and a blank, unfeeling stare where there had once been intelligent, if laconic interest.  
  
“I went to Africa for King Leopold.” Murmur had explained when asked, answering Crowley with an eerie passivity, “I helped him slaughter fifteen million humans so he could take their land. Not with my own hands, but my signature is on the papers that got the whole thing started. I got a medal, look, it's shiny.” Pointing to a little round of tin and ribbon pinned to his threadbare army jacket. An awkward smile split Murmur's face, all teeth and no joy, and Crowley knew he would never talk to this demon again.

-*-

_Long before the first humans walked the Earth, the First Being was alone, without form and void. The universe was a pulsing hot question in Their mind, waiting to be released and allowed to unfold, like lightless wings of infinite size and depth. It had been waiting both infinitely and not at all, as time began only at the moment of its inception. Hot and fluid, it burst forth from within Them, rushing outward to become something where there had been nothing. When the universe had cooled sufficiently, the First Being wanted to share what They had made. But The Almighty was still alone, and so They Created. Starting with six new beings, who, unlike the Creator, had limited perception and power, yet they still had the ability to build and shape within the boundaries of the Universe. These were assistants to the Almighty, carrying out Their will, crafting planets and stars from the materia of Their Creation and hanging them in the dark. _

_These beings had no names at the beginning, but they would eventually be given words, symbols by which to summon them: Uriel, Michael, Gabriel, Iophiel, and Sammael. The last of which would fall into flame and ash._

But that was only five. There had always been only five. But the previous passage mentioned _six_.(Although there were now seven Archangels, two of them had been promoted a good while after the Fall; Zadkiel and Jeremiel, who were even now frequently excluded from meetings, while Gabriel's simpering henchman Sandalphon was a fixture.) An error seemed unlikely. Angel-script was not written by hand, it was a manifestation of thought, there could not be a mistake unless the being who created it was mistaken. Or if someone had changed the text.

The angel blinked several times, he could feel that waspy buzzing again, like the insects were in mind, taking his memories apart and rewriting them. Aziraphale traced the words again. Six. Of course there were six. There had always been six.  
  
But the name still refused to come to him. Surely not _Crowley, _his soft-spoken, soft-hearted, wonderful, maddening, absolute _prick_ of a demon. Aziraphale would have known if he were – well, anything like that. Like the cold, war-thirsty Archangels in Heaven, or full of molten rage like Satan. What would that even make him? A Cherub? A Seraph...?  
  
The Seraphim, mightiest of all but for The Almighty Themself, said to have manifested before the Throne as six-winged, many-eyed flaming serpents. Beings of light and love and fire and such immense power. Power enough to, for example, stop time? “Oh, if only I could ask Raziel.” Aziraphale exhaled resignedly, he really had no business calling upon Heaven's librarians anymore.

There had to be more, the answers had to be there, in the imprisoned books that begged him to be picked up and read. With a tap of his fingertips on the rim of his winged mug, it was full and steaming again. Boxes piled up on the desk around him, and Aziraphale buried himself in his research, like a worm digging into the heart of an apple.

-*-


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Digging deeper into the apple.  


3

Seeking solace in the one warm and welcoming thing in his apartment, Crowley crawled into his overly-large and ridiculously ornate poster bed and burrowed in under the covers, pulling a couple of pillows over his head; big, feathery, _proper_ pillows, not the stupid embroidered lumps Aziraphale kept. He missed the pointless, annoying things as he lay on the great flat expanse of his exquisitely crafted and costly mattress, top of the line, with all sorts of clever coils and foams and pockets hidden under its cloud-soft surface to pamper him.

He needed this quiet stillness to think. He went back over what had happened when Aziraphale had – for lack of better words – entered him. The pleasure of being connected to in that way, immaterially touched, almost a tactile sensation as the angel had slipped inside, blue into red.

They were so alike, able to fit together as if there had not been six millennia of change separating them. It was expected of Hell to lie, to twist and manipulate, but Heaven had been just as bad. Worse, even, because with Heaven, there was no knowing where you stood. Crowley had been hurt, broken and mended with pain, made weak by Hell, and he thought that if his angel ever took his hand and lay with him, they would find themselves too different to truly be together. And then it happened, and he was wrong. Metaphoric scales had come away from both their eyes as the veil of lies lifted, and his angel, at last, _saw_ him.

And then Aziraphale had asked to be let into that one part of himself even Crowley did not look – aware only just then that he could not look. And he had, as always, been unable to deny his angel. _Anything you want_, he'd said aloud only a few times, but thought it every time those vast, storm-cloud eyes had lit upon him. _Anything_.

He had only somewhat gathered why they were doing this, but he keenly recognized the importance of it to Aziraphale; the way his other had fretted, worried his way through breakfast, barely taking time to savour the crisp oats and runny egg. That was reason enough to put his mind to it, his fickle stubbornness. He'd made a door for the angel, and then Aziraphale had passed through...

It felt like reality coming apart, Crowley's consciousness shattering and coming back together at the same time, both physical and ethereal senses crowding into his mind in a torrent, full of vision and sound, scent and touch, joy, pleasure, and oh, such agonizing, searing pain. Impressions of Falling, of being made. Fear gripped him that he would lose his hold on the barrier, and trap Aziraphale inside. Somehow, and just barely, he held against the onslaught. Green, repeating patterns of green and blue and more green, flashes of brown skin and amber eyes, red peeking from between green leaves. Crowley began to remember something in the midst of all these scattered fragments, something dreadful...

And then it was over, Aziraphale was outside of him again. He was sure no more than a few seconds had passed, yet Crowley's strength had been sapped utterly. He had let the doorway snap shut and receded back into his body. Sitting up, shaking, breathing heavily, Crowley had looked down at the angel's relaxed body beside him, and found that he could no longer recall any specifics of his experience, only how it had felt in the brief moment between _then_ and _now_. His gut had twisted coldly, and he'd been gripped by an irresistible urge to flee.

Fled, curled into sheets and clutching a pillow to his chest, Crowley could finally breathe. Better to let his subconscious deal with this one, he willed his heart to slow, and sank into sleep.

He expected nightmares, almost welcomed them, their cathartic honesty. But he dreamed about green leaves and mottled light and a sunlit place where he could warm his scales. There were other beings present, small and innocent, and he knew he loved them with his entire being. As if his purpose in the universe was to love them.

-*-

_At the centre of Heaven's fortress, around the Throne of The Almighty, were the First Six, Greatest of all, the lesser Creators. Each mightier in their own aspects than all the others:_

_Iophiel, the clever. Keeper of knowledge, Ruler of the Celestial Library. Unmatched skill at strategizing and planning._

_Michael, the warrior. The most fearsome and fearless, undefeated and merciless in battle._

_Gabriel, the messenger. An unequaled leader and delegator. Able to summon and control the raw power of the universe. _(And the patron of interoffice memos, Aziraphale thought to himself.)

_Sammael, the persuasive. A supremely charismatic and diplomatic negotiator. Wielding a tongue that bends all lesser beings to their will. _

_Uriel, the perceptive. Ever watching, remembering, calculating. It is they who hold the scales of judgment before Heaven. _  
  
Closing the book, Aziraphale made another note. The desk was completely covered by books, their boxes now piled on the floor, and notes, pages torn from the pad and laid out in rows. He'd long lost track of how many hours he'd been sitting there, engrossed in study, pausing only now and then to refill his tea, or miracle the last mugful back out of him.

Still only _five_. The frustration was making a bitter taste rise in the back of the angel's throat that the sweetest tea couldn't wash away for long. Every passage he'd found that mentioned the First Angels only gave an accounting of the same five, but quite often, the same book would admit, somewhere, to one more. Whomever had changed the texts had been sloppy. They'd only removed explicit details about the sixth, while leaving tangential references.

He still could not bring himself to believe that the last Great Angel might have become Crowley. Preposterous! Crowley was a gentle being at heart, much like the worldly snakes that resembled his Serpent form – a quiet creature that preferred to be left in peace, neither malicious nor harmless, venomous when he wanted to be, relentless when he needed. Almost like Nature herself, taking no sides, courting no fight, offering no quarter.

The most recently opened book, which the angel was still working through, also had a long chapter about Eden, and the time before Man. It was all rather nostalgic, nothing new to him, but he read it anyway, taking pleasure in the familiar.  
  
_While all the rest of the World was in chaos and wild, the Garden was protected by a wall, and in this wall, A great Gate to the North, and two lesser gates to the East and the West..._  
  
Aziraphale tsks, recalling the Guardian of the Western Gate, Iskiel, who had previously been one of Gabriel's primary assistants. They hadn't gotten on at all. The other angel had been so keen on her duties and nothing else. Whenever they'd met, she had been cuttingly polite, curt and unwilling to indulge him in any sort of social pleasantries or idle chat. He should never have been given that post, Aziraphale thought glumly, running his fingertip along the edge of a gilt page, it should have gone to another proper, stiff-winged angel like Iskiel, not someone who would waver and doubt and ache for company. But, then, if he hadn't been put there, he probably would never have met Crowley, and so he couldn't regret it.

_...Which the Great Angels had made for the new Creation of the Almighty, and in its midst, the tree of Life, which had on its boughs both wisdom and death. And there was in the branches of the Tree the Guardian of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, to protect the new Creation from the knowledge, lest their innocence be corrupt..._

Again pausing to take his glasses off and re-read the passage, the blond angel made a darkly pensive face. There had been no guardian at the Tree of Life. He'd always thought of that as a peculiar oversight. And, consequentially, nothing to stop Crawly from tempting Eve while the gate guardians kept their gaze turned outward, vigilant against the Godless, writhing uncertainty of the Mundus. If something happened within the Garden, it was only because Themself willed it. Which is why he'd had no reason to loathe or smite the demon on first meeting. They had both simply been doing their jobs, and it was nice, really, to finally have someone to talk to. A bit of luck Crawly had come to him and not Iskiel, who would undoubtedly have been too zealous to think of things like choice and circumstance before brandishing her fiery sword.

The angel was startled out of reverie by thumping from above. It grew louder, accompanied by a muffled call of his name. Crowley had returned. Aziraphale took his mug and his lantern, leaving the latter at the foot of the stairs, and ascended to the bookshop, quietly closing the trapdoor and kicking the rug back over it – he'd broach that conversation another time – before replying. “Back here, dear.”

Crowley's head popped out from behind a row of shelves before the rest of his lanky form followed. “Angel. Good. You're alright. You _are_ alright, yes?”  
  
“Oh, yes. Are you? Did you have a nap? I didn't expect you back so quickly, you sounded like you needed some time alone.”

“Angel, it's been a week. You weren't answering the phone.” Not that seven days was a lot when they'd spent years between meetings, but this was _not _the time to go incommunicado, and Crowley had gotten antsy.

“Really? Oh dear. I suppose I had gotten caught up in my work. I suppose now we're even for your worrying me when you left.”

Crowley snorted at the pettiness. “Mnh. I suppose we are. I wanted to talk about … that. You know, all the _that_.” He gestured communicatively with both hands.

A sober nod, a bounce of ivory curls, “I rather think we should.”

Aziraphale led the way back to his office, so the demon could fit himself into the subtle rut his narrow body had worn into the sofa there. The demon took his dark glasses off and put them on the nearby table, while Aziraphale sat primly in the armchair placed opposite Crowley's sprawl, asking, “Do you want to talk first, or should I?”

“I think you should, angel. I barely remember anything, it's all a wash to me now.”  
  
Even while he'd been researching, part of Aziraphale's busy brain had been planning what he was going to say. How he was going to explain what he'd learned. It was a revelation he could barely grasp, much less believe, and he worried about how Crowley would handle it. But he had to press forward, if they were ever going to resolve this.

“It was Eden, Crowley. I stepped through the barrier and I was in Eden. It was so real, like I was fully in my corporation, standing there. There was grass under my feet and warm air in my feathers. I felt like I could have plucked a leaf and carried it back out with me.” He watched his demon's unshielded eyes move and flick in reaction, listening, but not yet surprised. Well, given his greenery-filled apartment, the demon was likely self-aware enough to know a trace of Eden was still in him, somewhere.

Aziraphale continued, “I met an angel who was tending the garden. They looked like you, a heavenly version of you. I have to assume it was how you were before, ah, all that nasty business with Satan.”

“Figured I would have had to be some sort of gardener.” Crowley mused.  
  
“Do you remember any of your life as an Angel?” He'd never asked, not directly. It had barely even been touched on, a sensitive topic. Well of course demons didn't like to talk about being angels. He'd just come to the wrong conclusion about why, in Crowley's case.  
  
“Well, a little. Snippity bits here and there. I remember holding stars and setting them into the firmament. I remember what Heaven looked like... I remember the voice of God.” And falling, of course, every searing, agonizing moment of it. Not the kind of thing one _forgets_.

Crowley shook his head, “Lotta the specifics are blurry. I don't like to think about it, gives me a headache, kinda, gets all buzzy in there.”

Aziraphale was quiet a while, and then, musing aloud, asked, “Could all demons have their memories walled up like that? With their former selves trapped in eternal busywork?”

The demon's yellow irises contracted, “What do you mean, 'busywork'?”

“Well... You, that version of you, were kneeling in this lovely little bed of flowers and ferns, but some of them were dying. And you were healing them one at a time, but every time you did, another would start withering, so you could never fix them all. Busywork.”  
  
Crowley's gaze darkened, pupils widening, “That sounds like the kind of thing Hell would cook up.” He thought about it for a while, slim fingers tracing the contours of his bony kneecap through his jeans, “I don't think they do, actually. The other demons. I've heard them complain enough to assume they remember more than I do. Their names, their stations, the angels who didn't fall that they used to be friends with. I... think it made them more hateful, to remember. Easier to hold onto a grudge.”

“Oh.” Said the Principality, feeling the loss of Heaven himself these days. The angels he had been friendly with in Heaven likely didn't see him with the same kind of revulsion as they did demons, but he was considered an outcast. More than that, an agitator, an _apostate_. He didn't expect to be warmly greeted should he reach out to any of them. “You were never quite like that.”

“I didn't spend a lot of time in Hell, either. It warps you, angel. Turns you into something ugly, inside and out, and I've never been sure if it was Hell or the hating that did it.”

“I never spent a lot of time in Heaven, since the Garden,” Aziraphale murmured,  
  
“Mnh. Well. The folks up there have plenty of their own hate. It just never came up to the surface.”

Recalling the squalid desperation of Hell, the hostility and misery he felt in just those few hours he'd been there, the angel nodded, “I'm sorry.”

“For what, angel?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale cast about with a hand, “I don't know, really. It's only that it feels like this whole affair has been so unjust, but much moreso to you than me. I got the better end of the deal, and you were right, it isn't fair.”  
  
Crowley's hand paused in its thoughtful tracing, “Um, hm. Thank you.” He was silent a moment and then asked, “Was that all?”  
  
Again, the angel fussed with his hands, as he always did when he felt like he was on the precipice of an error. “No.” He said, assembling words, picking through them meticulously, “The version of you I saw wasn't just an angel. It was someone I knew, someone I couldn't name, but I know that... at some point, I knew the name. So I went to look for it in certain old books. And, uh.” A moment of faltering, seeing the paths before him and choosing the safer one, “Well, I was looking at heavenly records, and I found some oblique mentions of an angel who'd apparently been otherwise erased from all my books. And from my own memory, as well. If I'm right, the miracle used would have wiped it from _everyone's_ memories, except maybe, well, the Archangels. I'm almost certain they did this.”  
  
“And? You think? Me? Why?”

“Those records,” Aziraphale said slowly and clearly, “Contain the names of every angel ever created, which includes every demon, both their Heavenly name and their Fallen one. And yours, my dear one, was not listed among them.”

“Oh,” again, a lost-sounding syllable. “Yeah, that, that would be a reason.”  
  
Still, there was a larger 'why' that went unanswered. Why Crowley? He wasn't special. Okay maybe he was, but the demon was fairly sure it wasn't in a good way. Like that one Fruit Skittle in the bag that was all weirdly coloured and had a bit of another Skittle stuck to it. That kind of special. He was known for being a slacker, a failure, not quite up to snuff, and had assumed his lacklustre demonic performance had been largely ignored by Hell because he'd stayed as far away from it as possible.

He looked over at the angel with his head tilted like a baffled cocker spaniel. “Wh, er, okay. What do we do now?”

That was a good question. One that had been sitting leaden in the Angel's stomach for some time now. He had felt so close to figuring out something before Crowley had come by, all his notes were beginning to take on shape, but they weren't quite there. He needed more information, and there was really only two potential sources left. The beings who had installed the barrier, and the original source, locked up behind it.  
  
“I think I need to go back in.” The sudden jolt of tension Aziraphale's words evoked did not go unnoticed. He leaned forward in his seat to put his hand on Crowley's arm, “Oh dear, I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking. Of course that must have been... I don't even know what you must have gone through.”  


The demon shrugged, veiling his eyes behind dark lashes, but his own hand rose to cover Aziraphale's. “M'not sure, myself. Told you, I don't remember most of it. Came out of it feeling like I'd had my insides scooped out, run through a blender, and poured back in. The very opposite of a good time.” He gave the hand on his arm a reassuring squeeze. “I'm strong, angel. If you need me to do it again, I will.”  
  
“I haven't gone through all my books, maybe I can still find another way.” The probability of that, Aziraphale knew, was beyond slim. Nearly as slim as the chances of getting an Archangel to come down into his office and tell him the truth. His voice must have betrayed him, because Crowley made a dismissive noise in his throat and shook his head.

“I doubt that,” The red-haired demon sighed and sat up, elbows on knees, “Something's going on there, and it's bigger than just me or you. I must have known something they didn't want getting out, and I'll be damned again if I'm going to just let those mightier-than-thou sanctified gits keep using me to keep their bloody skeletons hidden. I want to know what... whatever it is that I know.”

Aziraphale took his reading glasses out of his jacket pocket and rested them back on his nose, giving Crowley a proud little smirk, “We had better prepare, then.”

-*-

Preparation looked a lot like pastry and cappuccino at a tiny cafe where nobody would overhear their conversation, despite it being crowded. The stouter of the pair had a rich mocha torte, and the leaner was deftly stealing curls of chocolate from its edges.

Crowley didn't dislike food, he did eat, now and then. He just didn't have much of an appetite, and moreover, found the process of removing food from his body extremely unpleasant. Withdrawing drink was bad enough, but at least they would suffuse into his body and could be pulled back out gradually. Solid matter was a different, well, matter. Disgusting, really, enough to put you off your lunch. When he and Aziraphale had just officially retired, so to speak, the angel had expressed concern about using magic, and asked that they both refrain. Which had gone alright up until Crowley had been faced with the prospect of using a toilet, which he still hadn't gotten over since the last time, and the whole deal was off.

Still, there were a few things that could tempt him to bother with food. Certain fruit, eggs,_ chocolate_. He was savoring each tiny pilfered shaving, letting it melt into the geography of his tongue while listening to Aziraphale talk, only somewhat paying attention to long descriptions of ritual and safety precautions, and more enjoying the soothing sound of the other's voice.

A change in tone caught the demon's attention, and he pulled his mind back to fix upon the words being said.  
  
“And Lord knows, I couldn't bear for anything to be left unsaid between us, should things go sideways. And you know that's a possibility I don't like to linger on, but...” Aziraphale continued, “Well. Lately you've been just a little bit distant, and I didn't want to push at it, but I get the feeling it's something I said, or did.”  
  
Had he? Oh, yes, that's right. Crowley thought back on the idle talk that had wandered into dangerous territory and left him uneasy. It was really his own fault, his own problem. “Mmn. No, no. It's nothing, not important. Behind us.”  
  
“Would you tell me anyway?” Blue-grey eyes brought to bear upon the demon's tender heart, wide and beseeching and absolutely deliberate.

It had been the discussion of sex, the angel's enjoyment of lust-based temptations into which he'd thrown his own human corporation as if it weren't holy and beautiful and entirely above his unworthy touch, much less that of coarse and selfish humans. The truth, always the truth for his love. “You told me you enjoyed fornicating with humans.”  
  
“I don't think angels can fornicate. We don't have marriage, or have-”

“Shut up for a minute, please. I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to enjoy doing those things to someone. Or having them done to you.” His words came out terse and sour, an unspoken 'I thought you were better' threaded between his teeth.

There was an unsure indignation in Aziraphale's response, “What _things_, Crowley? I've had sex with humans, and it felt nice. It's not entirely unlike what you and I do, just in a more... physical way. And oh, my dear, it comes with this all-over pleasure that I cannot describe. It's simply lovely. And if you don't like it, that's fine, but I won't feel guilty or dirty for it.”

“Don't you? Sullying yourself like that, enjoying something so messy and painful and fuckin' _degrading_. Shouldn't you feel dirty?” He had, every time, he still did.  
  
“Really, my dear, is that what you think of it? What about me? Am I degraded and dirty, too?”  
  
The demon's expression closed in, “No, of course not, never. I apologize. It's me, I'm wrong. But angel, please, tell me you didn't hurt them.”  
  
The air shimmered, Aziraphale's wings threatened to manifest, and while they might have managed to keep anyone from eavesdropping, the humans around them wouldn't miss a great pair of white wings filling half the cafe. Getting himself back under control, he whispered harshly, “Hurt them? _Hurt_ them!? I never laid an unkind hand on any of them! It wounds me that you'd suggest that. Why would you even _think _to ask...?”

“'Course not. Stupid of me. Always thought that was just part of it,” Brimstone eyes darted behind designer sunglasses, and he could see the movement mirrored across the table. “Must've got all the bad ones. Figures, demon, supposed to bring the worst out, practically asking for it.” he chuckled sullenly, “Cruelty, making it hurt, s'what got 'em going, like they couldn't finish if they didn't leave a mark.” Aziraphale frowned, and Crowley imagined his angel angry with him. He sat defensively upright, awaiting condemnation.

Features softening again into their customary cherubic calm, Aziraphale slipped his hand into Crowley's and told him, earnestly, “My dear, my beloved, my most absolutely precious. I am so very, very sorry. But I do not believe anyone has ever made love to you.”

“You have.” The demon asserted quickly.  
  
“Well, yes. But I mean physically, the human way.” Aziraphale's hand was warm and sure in its grip, “I don't think any of the those people treated you the way you should have been. And it's a terrible shame. Frankly, I hope they got what was coming to them.”  
  
Crowley withdrew from the angel's grasp, “Ah, for fuck's sake. I'm not ready for this discussion. Please, not right now.”  
  
“Alright. Whenever you wish.” Attention was turned back to the torte, cut into neat sections by the edge of Aziraphale's fork. “It's still better to have talked about it, isn't it?”

A quiet, contemplative few seconds, watching the angel eat, then a calmly uttered “Yes.”

-*-


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Formatting is a bitch. That has nothing to do with the story, it just IS.

4

It was easier the second time, calmer, and Aziraphale slid easily into Crowley's being, soon finding himself once again walking through a dark forest that emerged into sweetened air and dappled light. Again, he felt moss and grass under solid soles, and the movement of a warm breeze in his wings and hair, the warmth of the sun's rays on his face. He followed the garden angel's beatific singing, retracing his steps to the same glad where he'd found them before. They were no longer kneeling, but sitting with legs folded, holding their hand out and summoning nectar into the crease of their palm for tiny, bright birds and butterflies to sip from.  
  
Twisting his hands into his tunic, into fabric lighter than silk and softer than cashmere, he addressed them, “Hello, again.” And the turn of that gilded gaze upon him made Aziraphale's knees tremble, he felt small, yet not insignificant in the presence of this being. Loved, adored, they looked so very happy to see him.  
  
“Asrafil, you came back!”  
  
The slightly unfamiliar pronounciation of his name nearly missed him, it tugged at his subconscious, but he could puzzle over that later. He did not correct the garden angel, smoothing his garment back down and clasping his hands over it. “I did.” Aziraphale said, moving closer to the being who was so much like, yet emphatically not Crowley. “I wanted to talk to you.”  
  
The firebright fondness coming off the great being intensified, soaking into Aziraphale's imagined bones. “Oh, wonderful!” They said, “It's been lonely here by myself. I don't know how long I've been at this, but it feels like years! Maybe it has been, time doesn't mean anything to our Creator, so perhaps They are waiting for everything to be perfect. At least now all the plants are green again. I thank you for your help.”  
  
Aziraphale nearly protested, he'd hardly done anything at all – but maybe that tiny gesture had been enough to tip the scales? He let the thought go, and instead asked, “Did you plant all of this?”

“No, not all. But quite a bit. And the tree! The Great Tree of knowledge and life! You should see it, I'm very proud. When the humans come, they'll eat its fruit, and learn everything about the working of the universe. They'll be wise and clever and wonderful. Oh, I already love them.” They sighed and with a small motion bid the tiny creatures around them fly away. Standing, they held out their hand to Aziraphale, “Come with me, I'll show you.”

He took the offered hand, struck by both the soft elegance of it, and how much like Crowley's it felt – albeit admittedly larger. His own chubby pink hand looked childlike, Aziraphale thought, by comparison. He allowed himself to be led along through the garden, and noticed that it was not silent as it had been before. He could hear distant birdsong and running water, increasing in volume as he followed.  
  
He had stepped out into the eerily familiar centre of the garden, the broad clearing around the tree, with its many-tiered waterfalls and profusion of blooms. Birds sang sweetly from lesser trees around the clearing's edge, none of them daring to perch among the rich red fruits at the heart of this jewel of Creation. Familiar, yet so much more than he remembered. Greener, redder, bigger. The water more energetic, the glint of sunlight on spray more iridescent. This was a memory of the Garden, and not the real thing, Aziraphale reminded himself. It had been exaggerated, embellished by millennia of grief over its loss.

“It's incredible,” the Principality breathed, touched despite himself. He looked up, trying to read the thoughts in the other being's fine-boned face.  
  
They appeared wistful, hopeful, nearly as awed by the magnificence of the Garden as Aziraphale, as if they had not created this with their own will. But, it could be said that it had been the Divine Will that guided their hand, making them a mere conduit for the Creator's vision.  
  
“It's absolutely perfect,” He continued, wanting to keep the garden angel talking. “Gardener of Eden,” he asked, “What am I to call you?”  
  
Without taking their eyes off the Tree, the gardener laughed, “Silly Asrafil, you know my name.”  
  
He did, he knew he did, it just wouldn't rise out of the mire of his brain. “I do. But... tell me anyway. It's a game.”

Another chimelike laugh, “I like games. Alright. How do we play?”

A game, Aziraphale thought, he was already playing a game, one where neither player knew the rules. He had to think swiftly, “A riddle, putting words together in clever ways.” He smiled, eyes widening with an idea, “Out of all your names, one of them is special, but only I know which one and why. If you guess which, I'll tell you something you don't know. What should I call you?”

The copper-haired being mulled the question over, trying to find the catch. “You could call me what you already did call me: Gardener of Eden,” They considered, “But if it's a game, that can't be the right answer because you already said it. What else?”

“Iophiel would write it down in the story about the Tree, and Eden, and every time you made something lovely for the humans.”

Releasing Aziraphale's hand, the tall angel clasped both of theirs behind their slim waist, lips thinning into a sober line. “I have a lot of names, little brother. I am They-Who-Heals. I am the Lord of the West Wind, of the setting sun, and the stars. I am...” And they paused, blinking, a cool wind began to stir the garden.  
  
Pain ebbed through the gardener's glowing aura, they gazed down at their hands, spreading the fingers. The sky darkened, clouds moving across the sun, and a new hush fell about the clearing. Something was wrong, their fair brow creasing, as if struggling to speak. “I...”  
  
Thunder rumbled, an ominous growl from above. It was not the clouds that shuddered, however, but the mind that held them.

“I _am_,” They repeated, and looked up at the Great Tree, and suddenly the wind was cold and smelled of burning. The ground shivered, a sleeping beast beginning to rouse, and all around the gardener's feet their beautiful plants began to wither and collapse into dust. The memory was beginning to unravel, the garden's bright colours and verdancy bleeding away.

Furious, the gardener roared, and a violent wind answered, the cold now biting. Trees began to creak and lean, branches stripped of their grey, dry leaves, threatening to tear themselves from the Earth. Dropping to their knees, a hideous, tortured sound tore itself from the garden angel's throat. The storm howled in agony, reflecting the anguished screams of the being at its centre.

Aziraphale was rooted to the spot, overcome with awe and terror, the wind pulling at him with frigid claws. He wondered, if this memory in Crowley's subconscious could actually hurt him. Would he be destroyed or simply sent back to his body? This felt too real, the fury too powerful, and any doubt that he was in true, immediate danger dissolved utterly.

As he often did, the angel prayed, asking for protection, asking to be returned to his body whole. Please, please... But he was not praying to The Almighty, this time, he was praying to Crowley.

The storm calmed, the angel's echoing cries ebbed away, and a new, poignant calm settled. The landscape still remained grey, dead and chill. The Gardener of Eden stood with their head bowed, gathering their composure. “Oh, yes. I remember.”

As if just realizing he was still there, the gardener looked down at Aziraphale and their eyes were glowing, ember red. The light and love that had emanated from this creature had become a miasma of anger and sorrow. The lesser angel fell to his knees in involuntary supplication. He knew, he had always known.  
  
“I am the Archangel Raphael.”  
  
The Archangel spread their vast starlight wings, and blackness flowed from the base of them, expanding past the tips of the longest feathers and out, consuming the garden, the sky, stretching and surrounding the cowering angel in blackness.

But Aziraphale was no longer afraid, all his fear had faded away with the storm. As he calmed, he recognized the lightless place in which he now found himself; the unseen forest outside the false Garden. But the shapes brushing against him were no longer leaves, they were feathers. His own wings glowed dimly, the touch of dark plumes stroking them brighter as he passed through them. And although he was calm, he also knew he had no idea how to get out; there was no path, no guiding lights, only the caress of the tenebra. It was an enjoyable, soothing sensation, and as he walked through the feathers, they were gradually growing thicker, closer together, touching him on all sides until he was entirely surrounded by them. But it was so pleasant, so utterly relaxing, he felt safe, content here, sleepy... it would be just fine if he lay down and rested. The dark tickled as he curled up in it, warm and comfortable and so, so drowsy.  
  
Aziraphale's consciousness faded.

And then he woke up in his body. In his bed. And Crowley was sitting up already, staring at him with an unreadable expression. Dressed, with his glasses in hand, as if he'd been waiting.  
  
“I'm going to go.” The demon rasped. “Back to my place. For a while. Didn't want to take off again without letting you know.”

There wasn't anything to be said to that. A nod of acknowledgment, light footfalls down the steps and a jingle of the tiny brass bell over the shop door, and then Aziraphale was alone again.

-*-

“I'm a stupid angel,” he said, holding his favored mug between both palms and scrutinizing the wings on it like they had no business being there. “I had no right to condemn you, or forgive you.” He was not talking to the mug. He'd used full cream and marshmallows to make himself feel better, but the sweetness was metallic and harsh on his palate. He'd once said 'There is no _us_.' Knowing it to be a lie born of fear and frustration, and he regretted it, even when there finally was an _us_.

Crowley was the warp to his weft, they would have unraveled one without the other, and had been woven that way from the very beginning. But though complimentary, they'd always pulled in different directions, unable to reconcile their needs with their wants. When he'd heard the garden angel's name, it spoke directly to the first spark of him. There was no way he would have forgotten it without someone forcing the issue. They had both been torn, their seams plundered. But where Aziraphale had had some of his memory scrubbed away, a repugnant enough violation, Crowley had been cut open, eviscerated, his entire identity, his nature, sealed up where he would never think to look.

It had never occurred to whomever had done this that an angel might one day love Crowley, and might, perhaps by accident, or by fate, find what they had buried. But in excavating the demon, what else had he unleashed? He sighed and murmured, “I wish you were still here.”

He knew instinctively that this would probably be a long separation. And Aziraphale had gotten so used to having someone around, that he considered opening the shop, for a while. Before reasoning that it might cause the poor humans in the neighborhood to have all sorts of apoplexies and heart attacks and so on, so he'd better not. He drew the blinds on every one of the shop's windows, and made sure his accounts were in order, so that nobody from the property or tax departments would come bother him about the place going derelict. Not that it would, but humans get funny about a supposed business just sitting there, closed, dark, for years at a time.

It might be years, this time.

-*-

Crowley wasn't worried about years. He slept a year away like it was a nap. As long as Aziraphale didn't do something ridiculous and make him have to get out of bed, he could escape into dreams for as long as he liked. His demonic soul would keep his body alive so long as he remained within it, without need for food or water (or lavatories, as long as he made sure to get rid of excess fluids before settling down.) This need to sleep was different from his usual boredom or depression or just generally feeling like an asshole, congratulating himself for being an asshole, and feeling bad about it anyway. Holding himself together long enough to drive back to Mayfair was _exhausting_.

He made it back to his flat, and the shell of his self-control shattered and came away. He leaned into a rough wall, pressed his forehead to the cool concrete. It felt like he was splitting at the seams, he was sure if he looked into a mirror he would have cracks all over, his soul oozing out, overflowing with new thoughts and feelings and knowledge. All of it had come roaring out from where the barrier had been, a tempest, a purging flood. He could open his mouth and let it pour out of him for the entirety of history and not be done with it. It was too much, far too much.

His eyes threatened tears, his body shook with effort to move, walk, breathe without trembling. He would not sob, he would not falter. Strong, proud, _fierce_ demon that he was, he stumbled through his rooms, fell into his bed and clumsily pulled at least some of his clothes off before giving in to sweet oblivion.

_Not green this time, but white. Pillars and arches and domes of white. Silver and gold and every colour in the spectrum opalescing delicately from their marble-like surfaces. No need to guess where he was. Crowley half expected his feet to burn on the perfect floor. It was more of a when question. The architecture looked nothing like the human designs Heaven began picking up through the aeons. It was, to be honest, on the crude side. Perfect, yes, but unimaginative. _

_The first century, then. Crowley's hands moved to clutch at himself protectively, uneasy with just being there, and found that he was wearing a soft, sage-green robe with patterns of leafy branches on its sleeves. His hands looked different, when he held them out again, stronger and smoother than he recalled, and he could see the luminosity just under his skin. Grace. He was full of it. An angel._   
  
_ He was standing on a ridge overlooking the new Heavenly city, only just built in its naïve conception, and he was not alone._   
  
_ “Raphael,” said a familiar, implacable voice. _

_Turning, Raphael replied cheerfully,_   
  
_ “Gabriel!”_

-*-

After the requisite cocoa and cake rituals, meditative exercises to calm and center the mind. A foray into Yoga – the more rigorous poses were needed to put Aziraphale to anything close to rights – but after all that, the need to resume his research was absolutely imperative. He finally had a name. He had several names, in fact, and they'd been slipping around in his mind like fish in a weir, trying to evade retention until he'd written them down.  
  
The candle-lantern in the basement had gone out, and he brought it up to the kitchen to fit a new candle in, before heading back down to pick up where he'd left off. He started by going back over his notes, looking for hints, where to look next. He could, perhaps, find something in other volumes, ones that did not center on Creation accounts or stroking the egos of Archangels.

He delved further into illicit doctrine, expanding his search to a broader range of topics. Here, there, whisper of a gardener, murmur of a winged serpent, a guardian of men, a healer...  
  
Aziraphale groaned, none of this was helpful. The editor, it appeared, had been just thorough enough. As if leaving infuriating, useless scraps had been a deliberate choice, predestined to drive Aziraphale crazy. Could angels go crazy? He'd hate to think how he'd fare if he'd been in Heaven all this time. It was stiflingly boring, angels had no spontaneity, no imagination. But they were so ridiculously eager to follow, latching onto every silly new invention and style, modernity over substance. Well, what's wrong with doing things the tried and tested... oh, stop that, focus!

Oh, but here was something. It hadn't occurred to him to pay attention to _this_ name before.

In all honesty, angel naming conventions were a convoluted nightmare that had only gotten worse when humans started coming up with different languages. A single angel might have ten different names, and share four of them with an entirely different angel but name 3 was only shared during these holidays, or Tuesdays from 7 to 5, and name 2 had to be pronounced with a long or short 'o' depending on which angel you mean, and even worse, The Almighty had made the lower orders of Angels en masse, and their names weren't always terribly original, if they were given one at all. (Choir Angels had barely been bestowed with personalities, much less names, and Aziraphale thought of them as being very much like pigeons.) You could easily run into a whole slew of angels with only very slight variation in faces and names. So of course he wouldn't assume that a name similar to his would have anything to do with him...  
  
Ahem. It had not occurred to him to pay much attention to this specific name before, but it certainly caught his attention now.

_...Asrafil, who had been a warrior among the Cherubim, was to precede the final battle with a trumpet to call the armies of heaven to the ready, and summon the dead from their slumber. But this duty was then tasked to another, for on the asking, it was found that the trumpet had been buried in the desert, and Asrafil could not give account of to where it had gone. And it was thus decided that Asrafil was not destined to call Heaven to arms, and he was placed instead on Earth for its preparation, as this more befit his temper...  
_

The Principality considered. He didn't recall any of what he was reading, but that did sound like him.  
_  
… Be warned then, if calling upon Azael, the Angel of Judgment, do not confuse them with Asrafil. For he is a terrible angel._

Aziraphale clicked his tongue at the long-ago scribe, thinking to himself, 'That doesn't sound like me, I've always thought I was very nice, very likeable.'  
  
_And he will make a ruin of your work, as he is not able to do any of his own without mucking about and making excuses, he truly is terrible -_

“Really!” he closed the book, clapping its pages together. “That's just rude!”

-*-

Crowley slept, and in sleep, he dreamed.  
  
_In human stories, it is frequently stated that God created everything in six days. And the truth of that statement depends on whether or not you take into consideration that there were no days before the Earth began to pirouette around the sun. The night before the first dawn stretched backwards to the end of the previous universe, and the Almighty could do anything They wanted, for as long as They wanted, before the first sunrise was a smear of gold on Earth's horizon._

_So although this was perhaps day five in the newborn concept of time, the angels had been preparing the way for the world well in advance. Raphael had been working with Gabriel closely, as their brother would be the lead emissary to mankind once they were Created. They were fond of each other, a little moreso than they were made to be. Gabriel was powerful and bold, his thundering voice a promise of encouragement and support, he made everyone he spoke to feel important, cared for, but especially Raphael, who adored him utterly, so much so that it flirted with idolatry. Gabriel was like a safe place, a solid ground for Raphael to return home to. His violet eyes had been kind and understanding when Raphael told him about having concerns_.

“_Angels don't need to worry, we follow Their divine will, and we are never led astray. Remember that, Raphael. You cannot fail if you do as you are meant to.”_  
  
_ And Raphael had tried, wanted desperately to make The Almighty happy, to gain Their approval and validation as all God's creations did. But it became increasingly difficult to keep their mind pure, to stop all the what-ifs and maybes, like seeds sprouting in their imagination. The imagination Raphael had been given so that there would be beautiful things for humankind to enjoy._

_Raphael began to distance themself from Heaven as the politics of the other Archangels grew more confusing and upsetting, preferring to immerse themself in work, creating with the tools The Almighty had given them for that purpose. There were also two angels assigned to assist them in this: _Asrafil _, a bubbly Cherub who carried a strangely scuffed-up golden trumpet and loved words and music, and _ Daniel _, a Principality, who was a dedicated enough worker, though he was often sullen and stoic, a quiet dissatisfaction held in his pale jade eyes._

_They had wanted to comfort Daniel, mend what was damaged, but there was very little they could do when his solemn assistant refused to be helped, withdrawing further into himself with every attempt. Soon, Daniel would wander astray, and Raphael would lose him._

Time skipped forward._ Time moved sweet and slow, in the beginning. One day, really any day, as days did not yet have names, Raphael was observing as the humans loved each other in a bed of ferns. The couple did not pay the Archangel any attention, as they did not know shame, but angels did, and the man and woman were given their privacy when things got overly heated. Raphael had kept watch over the humans for a while, how they took to the Garden, to see if he had somehow missed something, leaving it not quite perfect. When he was acceptably certain it was going to be alright, Raphael felt like he should return to Heaven for a while, spend some time with their ethereal peers._

_-*-_

_“There's no reason to be upset, Raphael, they're just animals.” Michael's gaze was oceanic and cold. The warrior had come over very masculine for this meeting, had arrived naked, and was sitting on a rock-like slab of celestial building material with a large (not flaming) sword resting between his tanned thighs. “They're going to be mortal soon, and when they are, they'll start multiplying and dying like all the other animals. All part of the Great Plan.”_

_The six Archangels had arranged themselves between the elegant pillars of an open rotunda near the Celestial city, an intricate mosaic of the night sky across its broad floor. They had all worked on the heavens, and it was a fine symbol of their unity. _

_Outside, along the fringes of Heaven, flocks of insubstantial Choir angels sang and fluttered about like small birds. Wistfully, Raphael followed their murmurations._   
  
_“I don't remember anything in the Plan about...” Raphael looked back to his siblings and made a mixing sort of gesture, “Interfering with free will.” He leaned against a pillar with the same dissatisfied expression he recalled seeing from Daniel._

_“Free will is bunk,” Gabriel stated, factually. “They're going to suffer and die, so why not make it mean something? We can use them to our advantage, and we should. Heaven is to be engaged in a war, and when the time comes, we must win, it is inevitable, just as is inevitable that we should figure out how to make that happen.”_

“_That's the whole point,” added Michael, “The plan. God's Great Plan, to the glory of Themself, the glory of battle.”_

_Raphael frowned and pressed his palms together. He didn't know what battle was, and suspected neither did Michael. But he did know that Michael was created to be the leader of an army, which Raphael understood as meaning 'a large number of angels wearing metal clothes', and that Michael was also meant to do something important with that big sword he carried around. Swords were kind of an odd concept to the copper-haired Archangel as well, but he thought they had an unpleasant energy._   
  
_“We knew when They were making them that the humans weren't going to be like us,” Uriel's tone was gentler, her hand nestled into that of Iophiel, who was tall and very quiet, and whose silver eyes were deeply, intimidatingly intelligent._

“_You let yourself get attached, Raphael, but it's not real. They're just part of a game that the Almighty desires to play.” A hushed voice from behind her, and Uriel nodded toward the soft-spoken librarian. “Yes. Divine Will is... well, it's...” She tilted her head as Iophiel whispered to her again. “Thank you, my sweet. It's ineffable.” _

_The point was rewarded with noises of agreement from Gabriel and Michael. Sammael, however, who had been mostly quiet until this point, stood up, raised both her hands and flapped them dismissively, making the vibrant orange fabric of her tunic mimic the motion. “What's the point of any of it?” She scoffed, “We're all playthings in Their game. Why should we care about Their precious humans at all? What does it matter of they're mortal or not?” _   
  
_ “Because, Gabriel fixed his smile, which had at some point gone from confident to arrogant, on Sammael, “Unlike them, We will still be here when the war starts.”_

_Raphael turned to Gabriel and asked, quietly, “What's **war**?”_

-*-


	5. Chapter 5

5

Two months and sixteen days, and Aziraphale was still in the basement. He'd go upstairs to look for this or that reference material, or to take the mail in, or water the single plant in the entire building, a sturdy Gerbera on the kitchen windowsill, then descend again. And then, finally, he came up and let himself drop with his full weight into the sofa in his office. He breathed slowly, leaned forward and put his head in his hands. At his wit's end, that was the pith of it.

He'd read every single page down there, the entire collection, both angelic and mortal in origin. And all the ones that_ should _have been relevant, every dratted one, had been tampered with. Altered so long ago that there wasn't even a whiff of miracle left on them. He had the finest collection of forbidden writings anywhere in existence, save for Heaven's library itself. And there was no guarantee that those hadn't been magically abridged as well. Still, it was the last place he could go. Hell certainly didn't have a library. Or if they did, it probably held nothing but dictionaries and anthologies of syndicated comic strips with jelly stains on them.

Aziraphale had, not long ago, been on good terms with several librarian angels, even Iophiel himself seemed amicable enough. Someone who liked books the way Aziraphale did should have been stationed as one of the Library's caretakers, surely. But Iophiel sensed covetousness in Aziraphale; he wanted the books, the physical objects, ancient scrolls, illuminated texts. He wanted to collect and keep and own material things. So while Iophiel indulged the angel's curiosity, he could never fully trust Aziraphale to be objective in his work.

Contacting an angel without their superiors knowing would be a tricky endeavor, the angel was aware. He could send a letter... but it's not easy to find Heavenly ink and paper, for one thing...

Aziraphale paused, the thought broken. He'd felt something odd just then, an abrupt, unfamiliar lurch in his gut that he knew wasn't from nerves or too many marshmallows. He closed his eyes and followed the whine of it, something like a long filament that wound around his bones, all through him, and it was being sharply yanked. It was distressing, because it was distress. It was Crowley's.

Crowley was often anxious, paranoid, saturated with a deep-down certainty that somewhere, Someone was fucking with him. And he'd been right. He was also sure that this Someone wanted him to stay alive so They could continue to poke at him, which gave him an odd sense of hope. What Aziraphale had sensed wasn't anything so banal as anxiety or fear, but a raw, pleading misery that demanded an immediate response, and he was already out the door by the time he'd thought through all of this, hailing a cab that just happened to arrive at the corner.

Through their shared history, it had nearly always been Crowley who sought Aziraphale out. Always the demon who responded, initiated, sacrificed to be with him. 'Wherever you are, I'll come to you.' It had very rarely been the other way around, but Aziraphale would be _damned_ if he was going to slip when it was his turn to be needed. He pressed too much money into the cab-driver's hand when they arrived at the tall, posh building where Crowley rented, and barely acknowledged the doorman when he hurried past, throwing a breathy apology at the older gentleman as he summoned a lift.

The door to the demon's apartment let him in without needing to be asked, and Aziraphale closed it firmly, before inquiring into the dark, “Crowley?” Quiet. Not quite perfect: the low murmur of voices in an adjoining suite, the ticking of a clock nearby. “Crowley, are you here?” Dumb question, of course he is, Aziraphale could feel him like his own superfluous pulse.

A throb that rang with dismay, stronger now, close. Not in the living room, or the kitchen, nor hiding in the shower or the study. Aziraphale pushed into the sun room, turned up the dimmer switch for the halogens, no Crowley. The bedroom, nobody in the bed – where?

Aziraphale might have missed the slim, tapering trail of black flowing from under the bed, if he hadn't noticed Crowley's phone, screen still lit, on the bedside table just above it. Following the tail, Aziraphale found the demon coiled up between a pair of steel British Army foot-lockers.  
  
“Tsk, gone all scaly, have we?” Crouching, Aziraphale sighed with relief and ran his hand over a silky, rain-cool flank, and the intensity of Crowley's dreams crackled fitfully against that soft palm. The serpent squirmed at the touch, flicked his tongue out to taste the angel's scent, and nearly instantly began to relax, but Crowley remained held fast in tormented sleep.

-*-

_The sun dripped its way to the yielding moss where an angel lay sleeping. Raphael followed the constellation patterns of light falling through the canopy to where Asrafil lay, content and safe under fruit-heavy boughs, nestled in the cool with his wings lax against velvet green._   
  
_“Awake, my assistant.” An imperative, but not an order. Orders were not needed. Asrafil happily roused from sleep to greet his mentor. The Cherub shimmering with his eagerness to please, with the fulfillment of being doted upon by his Archangel, and Raphael's adoration was radiant._

_They did not love Asrafil as they loved their siblings, there was a fearfulness wound about it. After finding Daniel gone, without word, without answer, their remaining assistant had become precious and delicate in their mind. The other Archangels would likely have scolded them for spoiling the Cherub, but they did not mind, there is no consequence worth being concerned about, so long as Asrafil was so utterly happy. _

_He should have the all surety that I have lost, Raphael thought, and he lead Asrafil by the hand to begin the day's work..._

Another fast forward, _and the blue of the sky had become an ache. The perfection of the weather, on that day, every day, felt like a mockery, when inside himself, Raphael was a tempest. Furious, immersed in an entirely new emotion._

_Sammael tilted her head, a fall of blood-black curls. “You agree, then.”_   
  
_ “It's disgusting.” Raphael said in an unsure tone, “I can't imagine The Almighty approved of it.”_

“_God doesn't seem to approve or disapprove of much of anything we do, do They?” Sammael said in a pondering tone, “As if They already know everything we're going to do and intended it from the outset. Where's the free will in that? Do you think, if you tried, you could do something that would surprise God?”_

“_We must do, we have to be capable of more than acting out a script, sister.” Raphael looked out over the edge of Eden's wall, the sea of sand and sun beyond. The humans were happy in their garden, had been for a long time, and there were fewer and fewer things for Eden's gardener to do. “Otherwise, why? There has to be a reason we are failing to conceive of.”_  
  
_Sammael groaned inwardly, so close and yet... Angels could be incredibly dense. Even Seraphim._

_She told her sibling,“I'm leaving.”_  
  
_ Raphael blinked, “Did I say something?”_  
  
_ “No, listen to me, brother. I am leaving_ Heaven_. You can come with me, there's others. We're going to go somewhere else, start something new, a better world, a fairer world.” She paused to let Raphael respond, and when he didn't, continued, “I can't stand the hypocrisy. I loathe being expected to drop everything that actually matters to tend to these weak, defenseless mockeries of Their likeness. Of us. Can you honestly say you're not furious with what's going to happen here?”_  
  
_ “No, no. Of course not.” Raphael's wings sagged, the tips of his primaries bending against stone. But he also didn't share Sammael's envy for the humans. God loved them in a different way, They had to give these weaker beings more of Themself because their lives were so brief._

_“We can't just leave, Sammael, where would we go?”_   
  
_ “You tell me, you helped build all the best places.”_

-*-

“Well, it's not like sulking among the dust-mice is going to help anyone.” Not that there were any, dirt wouldn't dare accumulate under this bed. Aziraphale took his jacket off and laid it on top of the bedcover, before reaching underneath and pulling Crowley's sleeping form out, hand over hand, easily taking the demon's lax weight over his shoulders. Now and then, a tremble shook its way through the long serpent body, and Aziraphale held tighter as he carried his demon back to the living room and willed the fancy modern sconces to illumination. He arranged Crowley across the sofa, bringing the broad arrow of the serpent's head to rest on his lap, lightly coursing his fingertips over onyx scales.

Aziraphale could feel calm return, if slowly, and eventually there was soft sanguine hair beneath his palm, and a naked human-shaped body tucked next to him, breathing evenly.

Crowley had awoken at some point, a languid rise out of dreaming. There was no change to the soft rhythm of his breath, no movement or sudden tension to mark his slipping from one state to the next, but he was awake, and he spoke, throat rough. “The bastards did everything they said they would.”

It took Aziraphale a moment, but he asked simply, “Who did?”  
  
“The Archangels. Heaven. It was all going to be part of the plan.” Crowley sat up, tucked his legs under him, eyes down, hidden behind the fall of his hair. “It was horrible, and I got rewarded for it. There's so much you need to know, angel. I remember, M' so sorry, I tried to stop it. I fought them before the Fall.”  
  
Aziraphale searched the demon's face, heart stung by what he saw there, “I know you were there. With Satan and all of that.”  
  
“No, not with Satan.” Crowley interrupted, “I fought them by myself, before 'all of that'. I was there when they were planning it, the worst of it, knew it was evil. Angel, it was truly _evil_, as bad as anything anyone down below could imagine, and now I know every fucking horrible thing they did... I can show you. Please, just need a minute, I have to show you.”

Crowley turned to look at his angel, and was answered with a surprised intake of breath.

“Oh my!” Aziraphale was staring. The bile yellow of the demon's reptile gaze had become shining, liquid gold around irises as dark and wide as the void. “You're... oh dear, you're not at all alright.” The words fell clumsily out of his mouth, as if he were just now realizing that perhaps there was a hard limit to what Crowley could endure, and they had come dizzyingly close to it.

-*-

Aziraphale was in the center of a round building, nine pillars supporting a dome roof, with a starry mosaic floor and a sweet breeze wafting across the otherwise open space. The rotunda looked out over the rolling meadows of Heaven's outer range, painted pink and yellow by the drowsing sun. Six angels stood around the outer edge of the Rotunda, their positions respecting the neutrality of their meeting place. Aziraphale could see everything quite clearly, even though he knew he was incorporeal, little more than a shifting ghost watching an extremely high-detail reenactment from Crowley's memory.

The playback, for the moment, was paused, and Aziraphale took the opportunity to openly inspect the Archangels as they had been before the Fall. He knew they could not see him, they weren't really there, and neither was he, but he was sure the recollection was accurate.

He approached Gabriel first. He looked only subtly different, but Aziraphale could perceive how much lighter and happier this younger Archangel was. There was a passionate edge to him not yet dulled, a flexible, yielding quality to his body language that was no longer part of him in the current day. His dusky pewter hair was long and straight, woven into a smooth plait to lay between the blades of his four broad, ashy wings.

Then, Uriel: A galaxy of golden freckles on their statuesque form, their eyes were topaz, and their wings a warm butter-gold. They wore gilt leaves, dangling from their ears and wreathing their short hair, and a long cream robe that puddled about their feet. There was a spark of curiosity in their leonine gaze that Aziraphale could not remember ever seeing. Their features appeared relaxed, soft in expression, nothing of the tense distrust that had dug itself into them over the millennia.

Uriel stood as close to Iophiel as the formality of their positions allowed. Aziraphale remembered a time when the pair had become selfish with their affection, sharing it only with each other, and how unfortunately that had ended. Theirs was indeed a jealous God.  
  
Iophiel was tall and muscular, but not proud. His hair was black and fell like ink around his face, hiding his shy silver eyes as he bent to whisper to his paramour. The heavenly librarian's wings were a soft blue-grey, and both they and his tan skin glittered as if dusted with powdered opal. The shy Archangel's voice was as soft as the scratching of mice in bookshop walls, silent now, frozen in the moment.

Sammael next, clad in sunset hues and saffron plumes, already looking bored with the meeting. He was reading from one of Heaven's books, his head bowed, framed by a soft corona of rich brown curls, and his face sublime and serene; a fingertip poised to trace the next line of text. All angels were made beautiful, but Sammael was a pinnacle of resplendence, the pride of their Creator. In each of his forms: the simple, elegant one that humans aspired to, the towering, terrifying spiral of eyes and wings and flaming serpents, or as an ethereal, opalescent flame that did not devour or scorch, Sammael was a vision that made angels ache and mortals weep to behold. 

Michael, unwaveringly at the ready, sword at her hip, standing in a way that drew attention to her powerful physique and essence, hips cocked to emphasize the fine sculpt of her thighs, arms tensed just so to bring out the musculature of her arms, her six wings red like wine, like spilled blood. Michael was proud, and considered it fully deserved, a confidence that would serve her well in the future. Eventually Gabriel would introduce her to clothing, but at the time, she preferred not to cover her body, her tanned skin decorated here and there by bronze spots, like metallic fingerprints, or small coins pressed into her ethereal semblance of flesh.

Aziraphale came last to look at the Archangel who was not at all, yet so undeniably Crowley. The same large eyes and delicate features, the same flowing, loose-boned grace in his posture. This Archangel's wings were not white as he'd seen them in the false Garden, but a vivid carnelian. Raphael's face was lined with dismay, mouth curved downward, as it often did when he was confused or disappointed. Aziraphale wanted to touch his hands, his face, tell him it would be alright. But even if he could, it would change nothing.

He sent a pulse of thought out toward his Crowley, saying 'I am ready'.

The playback resumed.

Sammael was speaking, reading aloud, _“Earth shall become the stage for the grand war, and the adversary of Heaven shall be strong and many. Heaven shall be in certitude of victory, taking to themselves their swords and shields, but mostly the vision to seize upon change.”_ The Seraph placed one of his own feathers between the pages as a bookmark, and folded the celestial tome to his chest. Its words had been dictated by the Metatron, inscribed by Raziel, Divine Will translated into communicable symbols.

“Change,” Sammael repeated, and Aziraphale could discern layers of meaning illuminated by hindsight.

“What Iophiel is suggesting isn't just _change_,” Uriel supplied, “It's altering fate through action. We'd be rewriting the rules to our own benefit.”

Iophiel spoke up for himself, his voice like chimes in a distant tower, “Defeat begins with allowing your opponent to have a chance.”  
  
“We don't yet know who our opponent is, though, and that's a problem.” Gabriel countered, wings slightly raised. He looked to Michael, who was now leaning against the column between them, arms folded, but Aziraphale turned his attention toward Sammael. _You already know. You knew the moment you saw The Almighty's favored creation. Did you hate them, then? Or did you simply hate Them for making you choose?_

“God will provide us with opponents worthy of us.” Michael replied, “It isn't ours to worry about details like that. We have a purpose, and it is to win.”

“Yes, exactly, thank you.” Gabriel smiled with a sickeningly familiar smugness.

Sammael opened the book again, “We do know that when this happens, the humans will have filled the Earth. Ugh, that sounds just awful. It must mean that they've populated the Earth, not literally filled – I'm sure it's not literal.” He found his marked page, and resumed reading, _“In the Sixth Millennium, the Earth will be scoured by fire and water, and all the souls of mortals will be judged and added to the ranks of the armies of Heaven and the Adversary.”_ Sammael's eyes, fire-bright, fixed onto Gabriel over the edge of the open page. “Do you understand?”  
  
“I think so. Michael?”

Heaven's General was silent a while, considering, “Not exactly. The humans will die, and their souls will be conscripted into the war, some to our side, and some to the other. I can't imagine why. Humans are weak, they have no Grace, no power at all.”

Iophiel spoke, and Uriel repeated loudly enough to be heard, “You're right, Michael, as living beings, humans are weak, fragile, and ephemeral. But when their souls are freed from their bodies, the power in them is a match to our own, perhaps even greater. They simply do not have the ability to use it, they cannot unlock it, but when the time comes, we will. A human soul is a well of power, locked up and waiting for us to wield it.”

“So it really is the only reasonable way to proceed.” Gabriel stepped closer to the middle of the rotunda, an assertive stance. “If we know this, our opponents will know this, too. They'll be trying to do the same thing, and we need to be there first.”

“I think you're absolutely correct, Gabriel.” Sammael put the book under his arm and looked over to the one member of the circle who had been oddly silent for most of the exchange. “Raphael?”  
  
“Mhm?”

“Do you want to add anything, here? You've been quiet.”

Raphael straightened his posture, “I don't know what I could possibly have to say. I thought I made it clear how I felt about all of this.”

The fiery-eyed archangel considered her sibling. “You have, but that doesn't mean I can't ask if you've reconsidered.” Too soft, too sweet and patient, Sammael's voice full of honey and bitter herbs, “I know you think it's cruel, but in the end, it'll all be worth it. The humans will be with us in heaven, eternally happy. That's what God wants. For us to ensure as many souls as possible be brought into Heaven.”

Standing at his full height, Raphael was as tall as Iophiel, although slimmer, but the visual appearance of an angel does not correlate in any way to their strength, and the way he looked at Sammael reminded her that he was created her equal, that his tenderness was a choice and not a weakness.

“I think the time wherein we try to convince each other of anything has passed. For all of us. You've made your mind up, and all you really want is for me to fall in line.” He paced around Sammael, leaving his own space to circle his sibling. He hadn't told the other Archangels about the plan to secede, and Sammael was sure he wouldn't. Raphael knew what his brother was playing at, and that if there was to be a conflict, it was obvious to both of them that the opposition wouldn't be something unknown at all. Raphael found himself trapped between sides, not wanting to be a part of either, as if the ground might split and crumble under his feet.

“No, I won't help you. I'm going to help _them_.” He gestured emphatically downward, leaving a momentary streak of light in the path of his hand, “If the humans don't leave Eden, they won't have to play any part in this obscene game.”

Iophiel and Michael drew surprised breaths, and Gabriel took another step forward, his voice unnervingly taut, “You can't stop it from happening! It's all part of the Plan, Raphael!”

“Well, then, bugger the Plan!”

-*-

In human stories, the timeframe between the creation of the humans and their exile from Eden is depicted as relatively short. But it's more that life went at a more leisurely pace in those days, which was fine when you weren't susceptible to aging or death. Since leaving Heaven, effectively drawing a line between himself and his siblings, Raphael had returned to the garden. There he planned to wait, coiled in the Tree of Life, unspooled from his lithe bipedal form into a much larger and more complex one. Here he had stayed, vigilant, for more than a century.

The humans didn't know to fear this being of scales and wings and golden eyes, which they found wrapped around the trunk of the great Tree. They would approach, curious, and it would whisper to them to keep their distance. They would, only because the Seraph had asked nicely, and only until the next time they came to talk to it, to ask oddly endearing questions about the nature of their world and what their Creator meant for them. They were such bright, inquisitive apes, Raphael thought. So full of will and reason and possibility, and the serpent only came to love them more for talking to them.  
  
“Do you see?” The serpent, the golden-bellied muse of Asclepius, praying to the night sky asked, “Do you? You told me to love them, and I do. You asked me to care for them, and I do. I am here, protecting them from your other children. I left Heaven to keep them safe, was I not supposed to?”

In the starlit garden, night insects sang, but there was no answer.

Aziraphale watched and listened, touched by the intimacy of being allowed to hear these pleading questions, and wondered. If he had been in the same position, would he have been asking, too? If he hadn't met Crowley, he might have never learned how to doubt or want an explanation. 'It is not ours to question why'. He might have thought about it, fidgeted through a moment of anxiety and shame, and put on a huffy show of being virtuous and righteous and so on. But, though he was a good angel, Aziraphale had not always been a good _angel._

Of course, neither had Crowley. The problem then, was that Heaven cared a lot more about Virtue than morality. Much of the rallying noise coming from the celestial morale department was geared toward conflating the two; had filled his head for aeons with the poppycock notion that being virtuous and righteous also made you good. He watched Raphael slip down from the tree, to coil his tail around the humans where they had nestled together to sleep, and thought, “This is what makes an angel good.”

The sun rose in a rush of time, and the serpent now stood on a man's feet again, facing three angels who had sought him out. Two of his siblings, and a malicious looking Cherub who Aziraphale recognized as Sandalphon, despite having a different appearance. He still resembled Elijah, who had been promoted after his brother Enoch had been made the Metatron, but he still had the same look, the same furrowed brow and tight-lipped sneer.

Gabriel and Michael placed themselves to either side of, and slightly behind the Cherub, all three of them with their hands clasped in a conciliatory manner, their robes shining and clean, while Raphael's was stained from sleeping and working in the Garden, where he still stood in the shade of the Great Tree's boughs.  
  
“I still don't understand why you lay on the soil, Raphael. You don't need to sleep.” Gabriel had once been more curious with such remarks, rather than berating. Now there was only passive derision.  
  
Raphael ignored the implied question. “Why is _he_ here?” With a pointed look toward Sandalphon.

Michael's sword was sheathed at her hip, “I think you know why we would bring a guard, Raphael. We know what you've become. You're _feral._ We thought it would be prudent to protect ourselves.”

The gardener stuttered, he choked out, “From me? You think I'd harm you?”  
  
“We know,” Michael bit out. “You would harm us if we threatened your precious animals. We know you love them more than your own kind. In fact,” And the Warrior's face hardened, “I wouldn't be at all surprised if you loved them more than The Almighty.” She could hear an intake of breath from the other two angels at her flank.

“You think?” Gabriel's mouth narrowed into a line, “Could he? But that's, that's...”

“Heresy,” supplied Sandalphon.

Raphael stepped back, arms wrapped around his willowy torso, “No, no I, I still love Them. More than anything. They made me to love this world, I … I am only doing Their Will.”

“Will?” Gabriel laughed, “You've lost sight of the Great Plan, Raphael, you can't possibly try to interpret Divine Will. You're an impediment to everything Heaven is doing, to our destiny, but you can't stop this. The humans will be corrupted, they will become mortal, and the Plan will continue, whether you are there to witness it or not.”

Panic clouded Raphael's vision until Michael and Sandalphon drew their swords. And then, like being struck by lightning, he was angry. Righteously furious.

No longer able to contain himself in a human-shaped vessel, the gentle gardener of Eden became something else, something that would sear the minds and burn the eyes of mortals if they looked directly at him. His wings spread and split apart into six broad spans, feathers melting into rays of light. His lower body became a triple helix of serpents, glowing with holy fire, and his halo expanded in brilliance as he stretched his arms out, summoning long spears to both hands.

Aziraphale would have gasped, if he could have. When Raphael spoke, his voice was soft, yet it rippled through the spectral angel like a sonic boom,

“_Do not do this_. I don't want to, but I will defend myself, even from you. I will protect what is _mine_ to guard.” Raphael towered over the other angels, jealous and fierce as his maker, so vividly illuminated that the shadows cast around him were razor-sharp.

There really was no contest. Raphael was determined, righteous, fully in his power. He drew strength from his love for the world and his Creator and everything he knew to be right. And all of those things together didn't come close to matching the power of two other Archangels and their unusually sadistic Cherub bodyguard.

Sandalphon had Raphael disarmed and pinned under a great leonine paw within moments, and Gabriel had knelt down, returned to his more modest, two-winged shape, to run his hand over the holy flames flickering over the trapped Seraph's writhing body and extinguish them. His defeat was swift and complete, and knowing this, Raphael shrank back into his lesser form as well, wrapping himself protectively in flesh and bone.  
  
“You can't.” Raphael gasped, as much as Sandalphon's crushing paw allowed. Michael waved a hand, and the Cherub released the subdued Archangel and stepped back into a feline crouch, enormous wings settling onto their back.

Breathing, the gardener pleaded, “You can't send them out, they're innocent. Only God can judge them, and they haven't done anything wrong.”  
  
“Not yet, brother. But they will.” Michael bent next to Gabriel and took his hand, she made a gesture that Raphael did not know the meaning of, but wouldn't get the chance to wonder about. He was swiftly pulled under by whatever Michael had done to him, he fought it, but the garden slipped away, and he was alone in the void.

-*-

The playback ended, and Aziraphale was left in the dark as well. 'I should be angry,' he thought. Or scared, or shocked, or … anything other than this dull acceptance. The void seemed different than he remembered, heavier. Again, he began to feel the soft brush of feathers all around him, and then he could see faint pinpricks of light on the path ahead, leading the way.  
  
Letting himself be guided forward once more, Aziraphale could feel himself becoming solid, he could feel his own weight in each step, and gravelly sand crunched softly under him. There was a scent in the air, acrid and foul, growing stronger until it threatened to choke him. Sulphur oxide, brimstone. The feathers parted, and he stood on a plateau overlooking a great glowing yellow lake. Sheer, ragged cliffs rose on all sides, a fresh wound gouged into the surface of the Earth for a singular purpose. This was the Pit, newly made for Satan and his followers, before Hell had closed itself over and sunk into a metaphysical plane similar to Heaven's.

Above, from the glowing night sky, stars were falling, angels. Burning gold and silver through the atmosphere as they streaked down from Heaven. They screamed, and then they sank into the thick, reeking fluid of the lake with a gout of flame. This was their baptism, the fallen angels were something _other_ now, as they struggled out of the molten lake and onto a burning beach.

He was not alone here. Raphael stood at the edge of the plateau. No, not Raphael anymore. His wings had been burned to the bone, his hair gone. He stood naked, neither wing nor garb to shield him from the hot, scouring wind. He was watching the pitiable creatures below drag themselves from the sulphur.

Aziraphale stepped closer to the lone fallen angel. This time, he was seen, and a burned, soot-covered face turned to him.

“This is where my memory used to begin.” It was Crowley's voice, his manner of speaking. “I was told I wound up here 'cause I'd gotten caught up with this lot. Guilty of asking questions and having doubts and following the wrong leader, like the rest of 'em. As if it made _this_ justifiable.”

The angel witnessed _this_ as Crowley had. He saw how the newly-made demons wept and reached out to each other for comfort, only to flinch back from the pain of touch. Their bodies would heal, but they would never recover.

“It does seem...” And he remembered a conversation from long ago, “Excessive. Yes.”

Aziraphale felt as though he were the one following in Crowley's footsteps for once, arriving at each realization the other had long ago faced along the way. Raphael had been right to question, to refuse to follow, yet he had been created to do so. All of the angels who had fallen had been made by God to question and falter, and then be punished for it.

“They told us Their will was beyond our ability to grasp, and that we needed to trust in Their wisdom. They told us it would mean something one day. But... Crowley, I... I don't think I believe it anymore. That whole ineffable line, it was just Their way of saying there _is_ no plan. There's just claims of a God who loves us. This isn't love.”  
  
Crowley smiled at him sadly, “No, it fucking isn't.”  
  
“I still don't understand why you Fell, Crowley, even if the Archangels tried to throw you down, surely God would know you were innocent.”  
  
“Ah. Yeah, there's the thing, innit. Those assholes were right about one thing, I did love humanity more than God. In dark place they put me, I don't know how long I was in there, all I could think about was what was going to happen to those people, and I started to question Them for allowing something so unjust. And it just went on, angel, I could feel myself coming apart, and I didn't get any answers... and I lost faith. I didn't just stop believing They loved me, I … didn't care.”  
  
Aziraphale stood in silence for a while, seconds or hours, and then said, “God knew those angels would Fall.”

“They created those angels to Fall, love. Couldn't be a war if there weren't two sides.”

“Crowley, I'm scared.”

“I was, too.”

The angel lowered his gaze, “Please, Crowley. I'm afraid, because I'm not having doubts anymore, I'm starting to have certainty.”  
  
“You should. You'll need it.” Crowley mused, “But you're not gonna fall, 'cause you're still loyal, where it matters. An angel never Fell because they sinned or questioned or broke the rules. All They ever cared about was loyalty.”  
  
“You said you could never stop loving Them.” Aziraphale's tone nearly accusatory.

Crowley laughed, “I didn't. I just loved something else _more_. That's the whole point.” His voice stilled into a gentle, resigned breath, “Come on, we should go.” He held out his hand, and every time he had offered it in the past echoed in the gesture.

Aziraphale worried about hurting Crowley by touching him, the demon looked so breakable, every inch of him raw and cracked. He glanced down for a moment, at Crowley's hands, and they were healthy and clean. He clasped the one offered in both of his, and turned his face back up to see his beloved, clothed and whole again. Midnight wings fully feathered, blood-red hair in curling waves, and about him, a soft halo, a darkened circle of red and gold, cracked, yes, but unbroken.

Crowley's atrous wings wrapped around them both, blotting out the scene, and then Aziraphale was back in his body again, with the warm, modest weight of his mate resting against his chest.

-*-


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some demons are very smart and some angels trust them completely.

6

The angel slept. Dreamless and restful, for the first time in decades. Since the night Crowley had come to his aid in the doomed church, and he had felt all the love he'd been stowing away condense and narrow from the general to the specific. It was not sharp or worrying in the way of Crowley's affection, but it was directed, and he had followed it into Crowley's car, to a rented house outside Swindon where all they could hear in the night was romancing crickets, and into a warm, yielding bed. Crowley had sat by his side and talked to him until he'd drifted off.

He woke in the present to cool winter daylight glowing from the tall, narrow windows of Crowley's bedroom, and an empty expanse of dark sateen sheets. Comforting awareness of the other buzzed along their spiritual tether, the demon wasn't far away. In the kitchen, preparing both coffee and tea, judging by the light warm scent coming through the open doorway.

Aziraphale rose and followed the promise of a warm, reviving drink. He paused to smile fondly at the sight of his demon, dressed for comfort in soft, loose track pants, and a t-shirt a few sizes too big, faded black and printed with a graphic proclaiming 'The Clash'. It probably dated back to the original concert, going by its loving wear. The angel, still in pajamas and sock feet, announced himself with a cheery, “Good morning, love.”

“Ah, ha, you're awake. Excellent.” Crowley pulled down a pair of angular mugs and filled one from a steel teapot.

“Was I out for long?” Taking a seat at the small round cafe-style table, Aziraphale accepted the mug of African Pekoe with both hands, the porcelain warm and smooth on his palms.

“Just under two weeks. I woke up five days ago.”

After taking a soothing sip from the sleek white mug, moistening a throat that felt too dry, “How did you know I would be up today?”

Crowley paused between adding spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee, “I didn't.”  
  
“But you made tea?”  
  
A soft, embarrassed smile, “Ah, uh, you'll laugh. It's stupid. I've, er, I've been making tea for you every morning.”

Aziraphale's eyes widened over the lightly steaming mug, and a rush of warmth flooded his cheeks. “Oh, my dear, really? That's... oh, I don't know the words to tell you how touching that is.”

“It's nothing, angel. Don't make a fuss about it. We have a lot to talk about, and I just thought, you know, it would be a good idea to have something to drink first. Some caffeine, maybe some eggs. I was going to make scrambled on toast.”

“That would be lovely.”

Getting around to talking turned out to be a challenge. Not talking in a more general sense, there was plenty to chat about, when avoiding a topic they knew would be difficult. 'Isn't the snow nice, dear?' and 'I picked up a new Varvatos jacket, had to have it taken in.' and 'Did you put nutmeg in these eggs?' and exciting things like that.

But the eggs disappeared somewhere in the conversation, taking the toast with it, and they were left looking at each other across the little marble table. Crowley studied the constellation of coffee grounds left in his mug, his glasses folded on the table, yet Aziraphale still found his expression inscrutable.

“I don't know what we should be doing, now, angel.”  
  
“I'm not sure there is a should, in this case.” Aziraphale stood and collected both their plates and cutlery, and added them to the rack in the utterly spotless dishwasher. There were a few other plates in there, already. How many breakfasts had Crowley prepared and then eaten by himself? “Perhaps you should be asking what you want to do. You were the one who was wronged.”

“We both were, Aziraphale, don't lose sight of that. They took your memories, too. I... there was so much more, all the happy moments. I promise, I'll show you every one of them when I can.”

“I can be patient,” the angel replied, putting his hand over the other's. “You had to show me those things first. Crowley, I'm never going to forgive myself for treating you like I did.”  
  
“You didn't know any better.” A wry quirk of lips so often downcast, “What I truly want is a nice serving of revenge. Just, fitting revenge. I want those wankers upstairs to regret everything they did to us, to the humans... Ah. You don't know the worst of it, angel. What they did to the humans.”

There was no answer from the other, merely a thick swallow and a slow shake of his head, no.

“Funny thing, you know. I mentioned getting commendations for a whole whack of atrocities. Wars, inquisitions, ethnic cleansing. Horrible, what they got up to, made me sick. It got to be that I was certain there was nobody in Hell capable of inventing something worse to do to them than what humans did to each other. Demons were obsolete by the fourteenth century.”

Aziraphale nodded, he could recall a number of conversations and comments to that effect.

Crowley's hands were tense around the empty mug, “Except that humans hadn't thought of it themselves at all. It was the Archangels and their blessed Plan. They needed someone to start it off, get the humans kicked out of Paradise so they had Hell send _me _to do it. It had to be me, because I had tried to stop it, that's what made it beautiful. Nobody told me what the consequences would be, I didn't know they'd be exiled from Eden. But they were, cast out, like I was, innocent. And once they were all mortal and making babies out there, Heaven began to corrupt them in the name of God.”  
  
“What,” the angel began, cautiously, “Do you mean, the Archangels corrupted them?”  
  
“Just what it sounds like. The whole ridiculous business with religion, all that shame, and fear and hating each other. All those supposed sins and impossible rules that The Almighty never mentioned, being slipped into their poor little monkey brains, squirming around in there, getting them all riled up. Heaven already knew all about making people feel isolated and helpless even when in a crowd of their own kind, they got it down to an art when they made Hell.”  
  
“I thought demons made hell.”  
  
Crowley chuckled, “They decorated it. But even demons wouldn't do that to themselves. I've never thought of anything half so evil as religion. So much suffering, millions upon millions, innocents, children. _Children, _angel! You've seen it for yourself, you've smelled the blood and shit and burning. How could I have been wrong for trying to stop it? I don't know. I honestly don't.”  
  
After allowing a long moment of quiet to stretch between them, Aziraphale asked, “Why, though? Why do all that?”  
  
The demon needed to breathe, he could still taste ash and sulphur in the back of his throat. “How many times has the 'Great Plan' been explained to us? How the Earth was going to be cleansed when Armageddon began, and the souls of the dead were gonna be split up between the two sides, and then we'd all have a proper fight about it.” Crowley paused, until Aziraphale nodded at him, “But it wasn't going to be an even split. That's what that whole 'winning souls' thing was about, not saving people from damnation. It was to see who would get the bigger army. And the Archangels said, you know, why leave it up to chance? What's the perversion of free will if it means winning? The whole big picture line they've always been so hot about.”

“They cheated.” Said Aziraphale. And Crowley nodded.

The demon tapped his fingernails against his mug and it refilled with sweetened coffee at the ideal drinking temperature. He sipped it, but his miracled beverages were never as good as the original.

“They _cheated_, and they thought it was acceptable...” A soft breath, the angel's back stiffened with the rising hackles on incorporeal wings. “Every war on Earth, the very idea of it, started with – I've read all the scriptures, Crowley, hundreds of them. How much of it was lies?”  
  
“Oh, close to half, I'd say. All the things about sex and women and sacrificial offerings. It got worse when they took a second go at it. Especially about the women.”  
  
“Well, yes. The new stuff is abysmal. But, damn it, why couldn't I tell?”

Crowley shrugged, “It was divine inspiration, either way. It came from Heaven, straight from the head office. I don't think anyone could tell if they didn't already know.”

For several seconds, which turned into minutes, Aziraphale simply sat and stared blankly at the empty mug in front of him. Crowley didn't interrupt, sipping his mostly-coffee in sympathetic silence. He only startled slightly when the mug spontaneously shattered, then stood and left the table to fetch a dustpan. “I agree.” He commented quietly, and Aziraphale sat back in his chair, looking apologetic while his counterpart swept up shards of porcelain.

“Do you think they know what we've done?” the angel asked.

Thinking the question over, Crowley tipped the broken mug into the trash, not worth the miracle to repair. “If anyone were to know, it would be the one who locked my memories up to begin with. Which had to be one of the original Archangels.”  
  
“I think that settles it, then. We're going to have to have a chat with them.” Standing up, Aziraphale was reminded that he was still in his pyjamas. “Ah. Just let me get dressed, and then we'll see.”

“Should we, um, maybe take this to a higher authority?”  
  
The clouds in the angel's eyes darkened and threatened rain, “Oh, no. I don't think so.” He sighed, “I've tried that, and... as much as it hurts, it really does hurt so much to think it, but I have to, I don't think They care, Crowley, I have no hope of intervention on our behalf. Damn me, I still love Them, and I'm starting to wish I didn't.”  
  
“You don't mean that, angel!”  
  
“Oh, I do. I know what I'm risking by saying that, but if God doesn't care to be anything but a passive observer, surely They won't bother to punish me at this point. They let this happen.” Aziraphale's throat was tense, his soft voice strained and louder than he liked. An angel's fury is dangerous, even one of the lesser ones can smite an entire town if they have good reason, and as a Principality, this one had made great efforts to steady his temper, only use his more destructive powers when absolutely necessary. He was wondering if this was such an occasion. “Did you ever stop loving Them?”

“No, never.” Crowley answered, “I don't think we can. Even Beelzebub, even Satan. I think we have to do. If we ever didn't, we might stop existing, just _pop_ like a firecracker, nothing left.”  
  
In the meaningful silence following that remark in lieu of a reply, Crowley picked up his still-intact mug and transferred it to the dishwasher, rinsed out the teapot, emptied the grounds from his coffee maker. He could feel Aziraphale brooding behind him, radiating emotion like a sickly perfume. The angel went back to the bedroom to dress himself, and Crowley placed his hands on the edge of the sink and let his body sag between them. “Look at us. Look what You've made.” Not a prayer, he didn't expect God would listen even if he did pray, but he often talked to Them, or at Them, or maybe just to himself at the idea of Them. “I don't know that there's anything You could do that would make up for what You've done. Even if You erased it all, took it all back, that wouldn't balance it out. I may have to love You, my Maker, my Lord, I love You. But I don't have to want You.”

He waited for Aziraphale, who held all the love his Creator had not demanded from him. In his angel's cottony hair, rosebud lips and silver-lining eyes. In the scent of lavender and cookies and ink, the worn buttonholes of a waistcoat and the polish of wingtips; in strong hands that healed and comforted and took action when it was needed. Crowley smiled when the object of his affection returned, adding a final comment unspoken: 'Here, look at this wonder. This is who I want. If I am given any choice, let me choose him'. They left the apartment together, arms linked as the elevator took them down to the ground floor.

-*-

Kensington Gardens is typically grey and wet in January, the rare London snowfall turning quickly to colourless slush and muck. Thus far, the morning had been exactly that, but by the time an Ethereal and an Occult being set foot on its civilized grounds, the sun had come out, and there was a blanket of fresh, twinkling snow hiding all the dormant flowerbeds and mud. People had come out to enjoy the day, the clean new breeze that pushed away the morning's stale smog. Not so many that the park felt crowded, but not few enough that a couple walking alone would draw attention.

They wandered through the waterlily pools, the edges of hardy pads and shoots poking up through the white layer, close enough to hook their fingertips together. Crowley listening as his angel talked his way through the upheaval of his entire existence. All five stages, going from 'But they must have had a good reason!' to 'I think I always knew, I was just being stubborn.' And every stop in between.

“And I know they've done awful things to everyone, Crowley, but I think you should be the one who does... whatever we do about it. They made you destroy what you were willing to Fall to protect.”

“To die, angel. I, _he_ was an idiot.”

“Mm,” Observed Aziraphale, “Dear, I was just wondering, do you feel any different now?”  
  
“What do you mean, different? I feel like a tree that's been yanked out of the ground and put back in upside-down. Of course I do, you know I do.”  
  
A tactful moment, before asking, “I mean in terms of your powers. An Archangel is capable of much more than a demon...”

“Oh, no. Not like that. I'm just a demon, that's all I'll ever be. I can never go back... And I wouldn't want to.” Crowley watched a robin land on a rush and peep saucily at them, he held out his hand and the bird flitted to his palm. He seemed unaware that this was out of the ordinary. “Raphael was bound up by so much faith, he was naïve and pure and so much that I'm not, so much less than I am. I couldn't go back to being him without losing _me_.”

Momentarily distracted by the bird, Aziraphale had to blink and pull himself back to the conversation. His voice gentled, “You were never just a demon. I've seen you do things most angels can't, I've seen you stop time itself. Really, my love, just a demon?”

“We-ll.” Crowley drew the syllable out, and the robin, finding nothing to eat, flew away. “Don't think for a moment it was easy. Took everything I had, and I wasn't sure I'd survive it. Felt like I was going to explode like an egg in a microwave.”

His blond companion made a face. “You still pulled it out.”

“_Off,_ angel. Pulled it off. And Raphael could have done it with a thought. Even if I were strong for a demon, he was an Archangel, and he's dead. No amount of going over his memories will bring him back. And I've already grieved enough, thank you.”  
  
“I do apologize,”

“No, don't, it's fine. Look. I have an idea.” And Crowley smiled at the returning brightness in the other's face, “We can't fight them, just the two of us against six Archangels and all the forces of Heaven – that would be suicide. But we can be clever, out-think them. They're not stupid, obviously, but they're so full of themselves that they'll assume we are, we just need to keep them believing that.”

Aziraphale felt a well of pride. Angels were often intelligent, observant and logical, but Crowley was _smart_, cunning and inventive, and an infatuated blush rose over his already-pink cheeks. “And then what?”

“Well, I know you're not much for modern technology, so you leave that to me.”

-*-

_Elsewhere_

A nervous Virtue in a Wedgwood blue pant-suit walked a flawlessly white marble hall, their heeled shoes ticking on a floor almost mirror-polished. They approached an Archangel's celestial office, a slim tablet held in both angelic hands. And though the hallway didn't look very long, it felt like time stretched as they traversed it. After several harrowing seconds, the Virtue lifted one hand to rap politely at the frosted glass door, then stepped back again to await admittance,. The pane slid aside, and Iophiel at her desk gestured for the Virtue to come forward.  
  
“You have something for me.” Not a question. The keeper of all the knowledge of Heaven and Earth rarely deigned to ask. “Come, Phanuel, let me see.” She had more of a voice now than before her falling out with Michael She'd needed to learn to speak up for herself, but she was still subdued and conservative of words.

Phanuel placed the tablet on Iophiel's desk. Its pearly surface displayed a prayer from the Principality Aziraphale. “Yes, sir.”

Iophiel picked it up and scanned the words, “Interesting.”

“I believe this is something you were waiting for, sir.” Phanuel wanted to be proud of a job well done, they'd been vigilant for centuries, but the Archangel's face made it very clear that this wasn't something to be celebrated.

“Unfortunately so.” Iophiel whispered, “That is all, Phanuel. Thank you.” She didn't look up, knowing that the Virtue would see themself out. So, the Serpent of Eden had finally escaped, had he? And he'd told his demoted assistant about it, too. She supposed it was about time. She read the prayer again. Magically inscribed in an alphabet older than the Earth, it was carefully phrased, and brooked no negotiation: A summoning of all four remaining Great Angels to parlay, as if an exile had the right to demand that.

Iophiel smiled, the defectors weren't even bluffing, had nothing to bluff with, yet they still puffed themselves up and feigned a threat, like sparrows posturing at a stoat. They were feisty, she had to give them that, and bright, capable of surprising her. If there was anyone who could surprise Heaven's librarian, it was that demon.

Which was concerning, on second thought. They _were_ bright, she knew, too smart to try to bully Heaven if they didn't have _something_ up their sleeve. And Iophiel frowned when it dawned upon her that she couldn't guess what.

“Very well, Aziraphale, you shall have your audience.”

-*-

Though it was considered gauche for the higher-ranking angels, especially after Gabriel had made such a grand show of introducing those little wheeled hoverboards, Iophiel still enjoyed flying over all other methods of getting around.

Heaven in the 21st century very much resembled a microchip factory designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Sterile angles and austere elegance, and very few comfortable places to sit. It was also enormous, having become a sprawling labyrinth of halls and rooms and highways, growing despite the angelic population slowly shrinking. The empty space wasn't for angels, though, it was for humans. Heaven had been anticipating billions of souls, eager to become part of the glorious capital of Creation after their victory over Hell.

Michael had explained it once as 'instilling confidence in the masses'. It didn't do, he'd said, to be seen rushing around. It would make the lower echelons anxious to see their leaders at ill ease, so it was a matter of morale that they walk (or sometimes roll) at a relaxed pace. There was also a nice sense of luxury and superiority in it, taking one's time while others had to hustle. If you were late, whomever you were meeting would just have to wait, because you had the power to be as late as you wanted.

Iophiel could see the appeal, but rarely bothered, she lacked patience when there was something she could be doing. Leave that HR dawdling to Gabriel or Michael, it wasn't Iophiel's job to muster the troops. At the moment, she was busy, and she needed to be somewhere an inconvenient distance from her office. She could have teleported, but to take this opportunity to use her wings, soar in the sunlight, was indulgence enough.

She alighted in that place where the Archangels had been meeting since Heaven had been built, the rotunda with the starry mosaic floor. Once it had been well outside the Celestial city, but now, after millennia of growth, Heaven's gleaming buildings surrounded it, spread out so far in every direction that the place was now closer to the centre of the city than the edge.

A circular span of heavenly meadow had been preserved around the rotunda, broad enough that the city was nearly hidden from view from within the domed building. Iophiel knelt on the cool tile floor and took a moment to rest her eyes on one of the very few places in Heaven that hadn't been drastically changed, on the swaying white-gold grain in the meadow, eternally ready for harvest. She began the invocation for her siblings, the call only they could hear, and which they would not ignore.

-*-

_Not Elsewhere_

  
“Look, they're practically the same thing. Just don't ask too many questions and it'll be fine.” Crowley was writing down a list of things they needed, and an address. He tore the sheet from his notepad, and handed it with a zip pouch full of coins to Aziraphale, “Demons are always ready to bargain.”

Tucking the note into his breast pocket, Aziraphale weighed the heavy pouch in his hand, at least ten thousand Euro in Byzantine gold, by today's market. But of course that would hardly dent the demon's savings.

“I'm looking for a Buddhist temple, a big one.” Crowley told him, “I figure that's the best place to hold our little party.”

“A Buddhist temple? Why there?”

“Oh, ah.” A mildly chagrined reply, “It's neutral ground. You didn't know? Places dedicated to other gods are always neutral ground.”

The angel looked surprised, “What do you mean, 'neutral'?”

Crowley made a gesture, a circular winding of his fingers. “Well, it's where neither Heaven nor Hell can see me. Or you, or anyone, unless they actually go there, physically, to have a chat. And if any occult or ethereal agents do set foot on neutral ground, they wouldn't be able to use their powers. No miracles, no curses.”

Several emotions passed through Aziraphale's rounded features. He asked, “How long have you known about that?”

“Not that long. Since the place was built over in Lambeth. I've been going there to think, unwind... It's very beautiful, I've been meaning to take you there.” He tilted his head in the way he often did when apologetic, “But.”

But. Aziraphale was still standing with the pouch of gold coins. “You wanted to be alone.”

“No. Yes, but that wasn't why. I wanted there to be somewhere I could go. In case things went badly. In case you and I...”

“In case you needed to hide from me. I think I understand.” Sides had been claimed, a war was imminent, there was no guarantee where they would land in all this. Their Creator had only given them so much free will, and could take it back at a whim.

Crowley did not apologize, and Aziraphale did not demand it.

“Right. I'm off to do my part. Watch yourself around those sneaky buggers, angel. They'll steal your pants if you let them.”

“Really.” The way Aziraphale said two simple syllables, sounding somehow scandalized and intrigued at the same time. Crowley turned and hurried out the door before he could be seen blushing.

-*-

In recent years, much of London's older, poorer neighborhoods had been undergoing vigorous urban renewal. Gone were the slums and poverty-stricken rows of the nineteenth century, London's worst boroughs were becoming proud and clean and safe.  
  
This was not one of those neighborhoods, Aziraphale thought, exiting his taxi and tipping well. He was in Stratford, near the rail depot. In the daytime, it was almost quaint, a throwback to the industrial era, all family-run shops with faded signs older than the owners, soot-stained little houses crowded along narrow roads, and the smell of factories still rising from the soil after a rain. This, the angel recognized, is where the poor fled to when their affordable homes became gentrified, this is where the crime and desperation retreated to in the wake of progress, as well.

It was exactly the sort of place demons would do business. This particular place happened to have once been a primary school, a squat building surrounded by tall metal post fences and security gates, and Aziraphale didn't know if he should be sadder for the school's closure, or that it had ever needed such stark, threatening fortification. There was a speaker panel on the front gate, and the angel noted that its once shiny red plastic button was more black and melted. It served its purpose well enough when he pressed it, producing an obnoxious buzzer sound.

After a few seconds, an impatient, staticky “What?!” came through the speaker.  
  
Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and repeated as Crowley had told him, “I'm here for the bake sale.”  
  
Static, “Did you bring cookies?”

The angel sighed tiredly, “Yes, lots of cookies.”

“Okay, just hold on.”  
  
Aziraphale waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
And started thinking about wearing a wristwatch so he could look at it sternly and tap its face.

By the time someone came out of the old school, Aziraphale was daydreaming about hummingbird cake and sweet tea on a verandah in the American South. He startled just slightly when a slight human-type being with tousled hair and a malnourished complection began unlocking the gate manually. “Oh,” he said, “Hello.”

“Yeh.” said the demon. “Come in.” After locking the gate again, they looked up at the visitor as they walked Aziraphale to the decrepit-looking building's front door, “You're an angel.”  
  
“Yes. I suppose I still am.” Certainty in that had been lacking, but his wings remained white, his halo intact. “In some matters, one has no choice.”

“Huh. I guess so. That's a weird thing for an angel to say.”

“Is it?” He'd said a lot of things that angels weren't supposed to.  
  
The demon shrugged, and let him into what had been the school's front offices. There was a feminine-presenting being dressed as a secretary from the nineteen-thirties sitting at the desk in the entry, and Aziraphale was bid sit in one of the steel and upholstery chairs adjacent the door.  
  
Again, he waited. This time he was too distracted by the noise of the 'secretary' typing on a vintage black Underwood to fantasize about cake.

Perhaps he should try using that fancy little 'smart phone' Crowley had bought for him.

The typing demon finished the page she was working on, and then observed Aziraphale waiting. She cleared her throat, “Did you take a number?”

“Excuse me? I'm the only one here!”

“You need to take a number.” She put a fresh page in the typewriter and resumed clicking.

Muttering under his breath, the angel searched the room for a ticket dispenser, and finally found it just outside the door. Returning, he shook his hand and the tiny scrap of paper in it, “I have a number.”

Without looking up, “Please take a seat. Your number will be called shortly.”

'If I find out that Crowley is responsible for this,' Aziraphale thought, 'I am going to... oh he's going to need a place to hide from me!'

After no less than another twenty minutes, the 'secretary' started calling out numbers, as if there might be other customers waiting in the supply closet. She waited between each one, and by the time she got to the one Aziraphale was holding, he was entirely red in the face. The angel marched up and slapped it on the secretary's desk. “Yes. There we are. Now, can you help me?”

The demon accepted the number, “Of course, sir. What is it you are looking for?” Suddenly a picture of perfect customer service.  
  
Taking the folded notepaper out of his pocket, Aziraphale smoothed it out and handed it to the secretary demon. She looked it over for a moment, her mouth a pouting circle. “You'll need to see several of our vendors for this.” Opening a drawer, she rifled through several folders and then pulled out a photocopied map of the school, which she then proceeded to draw circles on in red ink. “Here, go to these rooms. You'll find what you need.”

“Oh!” He breathed, delighted at having finally gotten somewhere, “Thank y-”

“Ew. Don't, you'll give me a rash. Go on now.” She smiled, and her teeth were like those of a piranha. “Mind your wings, _angel_.” The word no endearment on her tongue.

-*-

Crowley's 'part', as he'd put it, was the delicate forgery and placement of documents that didn't exist the day before, and making sure the temple he'd chosen would be empty of humans when the Archangels arrived. He needed a large indoor space, with good lighting and acoustics, and it needed to be outside of town, to minimize casualties should his speculative worst-case scenarios play out.

What had been an Anglican church out in the sticks West of London had been painted red and yellow, bedecked with tiny flags, and was now flanked by cherry trees that would bloom beautifully come the spring. Its new consecration rendered the grounds perfectly safe for a demon to walk, and the old oak doors creaked amicably as he let himself into its vaulted nave. There were no longer pews in long rows, neither font nor organ, but there was an altar. It had been made into a chaotic yet beautiful display of colour and light; draped with brightly dyed silk banners and alight with incense and candles. Host to at least a dozen statues of Buddha and the various Bodhisattva in different materials: gold and silver and jade and rare woods, with bowls of perfume and oranges nestled around their feet.

The monks were taking their afternoon tea when Crowley arrived, and they welcomed him, inviting him to sit down and enjoy a cup. They offered him biscuits and candy, and Crowley got the impression that perhaps these men had some vague idea about what he was, and that they didn't fear him. To them, demons were a part of nature, like the wind or a fire; a force to be respected, but not hated.

With paperwork in hand. Crowley wove a little demonic influence into the suggestion that it was alright to allow the use of the temple as a film set. It wouldn't take long, his crew would be ever so careful and respectful, and the temple would be paid well – a charitable donation on top of the usual fees. He already had the permits filed, and if they'd just sign here...

He truly hoped the temple would still be there when they were finished. The tea had been very tasty. Ah, well, if not, he'd make a donation in its memory. He did try to keep his promises.

He had a room booked at a repugnantly quaint country house just a block from the temple, and settled himself there for the rest of the night, needing only dodge the overly-friendly host and his equally enthusiastic beagle on the way up the stairs. The room reminded him of Aziraphale, too many cushions, too many books, too much _beige_, and the scent of lavender infused into the bedcovers. He slept surprisingly well.

Aziraphale joined him in the morning, and after a leisurely breakfast, they began setting the trap.

-*-

“Someone's clever,” remarked Michael, stepping through the carnelian-red archway to the temple grounds. She feared no ambush, knew the outcasts would have to be idiots to attack her, much less four Archangels, celestial powers or none. They had all come armed, nonetheless. weapons sheathed but ready.

“Why do you think they chose to call us here?” Gabriel was aware of what it meant for an angel to enter a neutral space, but he was sure there was more to it than that.  
  
Michael let her hand pass over a pillar at the entrance, and where her fingers brushed, the red paint flaked away, leaving white streaks. “Nobody can eavesdrop on this conversation. They want to keep this discreet, I respect that.” She waved her hand and the doors of the temple parted for them, Gabriel followed, then Uriel.

Iophiel fell behind a moment, looking back through the archway, feeling quite distinctly as if someone were, in fact, watching her.

The temple was silent inside, vacant of people, human or otherwise. The floor in the centre of the nave had been cleared of rugs and furniture, and a circle of lettering and symbols had been painted there, aglow in winter sun from a wide skylight high above. It was a seal of truth, a non-offensive little spell that would tattle on any attempt at a lie in the temple. Gabriel laughed when he saw it. “Oh, that's adorable. Look.”  
  
“Do they not know that won't work on us?” Uriel kicked lightly at some of the letters, failing to scratch them. “Maybe it's a show of good faith, so we know they're being honest. One of them _is_ a demon. And the other... I'd call him a candidate.”

“Or they're just stupid,” Suggested Gabriel.  
  
Iophiel joined her siblings, “They're not stupid.”

“I'm flattered.” Aziraphale said from the open doorway, letting himself and Crowley in before bidding the doors shut. There were symbols painted on the interior of the heavy oak, and as the two doors came together, there was a brief scintillation across them.

The two representatives of their own side approached the illuminated center of the room, where all four of their celestial visitors had all turned to regard them Aziraphale stepped into the painted circle, a passive smile on his face, but Crowley slowed and stopped a few paces back.

He couldn't move, Michael was looking directly at him, and he felt his legs turn leaden under the Archangel's scrutiny, the demon's will faltering in the face of his persecutors. It took a supreme summoning of self-control to stand and return the look without shaking or retreating, but at that moment, Crowley could not take one more step forward.  
  
Michael could see the petrifaction she'd caused, and smiled, ignoring Aziraphale for a moment, she spoke through the lesser angel, “What's the matter, Crawly? Are you not happy to see us?”

Crowley made a throaty, syllabic sound.  
  
Uriel looked down their cheek at the struggling demon, “Oh, yes, you remember your siblings _now_, don't you, Crawly? Or should I call you Raph-”  
  
“You stop that!” Aziraphale stamped his foot, “I won't have you bullying him. If that's all you came to do, there won't be any negotiation, and mark my words, you'll see what happens!”  
  
Finding his motor cortex where he'd mislaid it, Crowley pulled himself out of torpor and put a hand on his counterpart's arm, “No, no, I'm alright. Let me.” He fixed Uriel with a withering look, “You don't get to call me that. Any of you. You _murdered_ him, and you don't have any right to say his name.”  
  
“What, 'Raphael'?” Uriel mocked, “You think you're someone else now, just because you fell and took a different name? Don't be ridiculous. You're still the same weak idiot. Look at you. A sad excuse for an Archangel and a sad excuse for a demon. But your boyfriend's right, we didn't come here just to bully you. We came to tie up loose ends.”

“You must really hate that we fucked up your plan, huh?” Crowley smiled, baring his sharp teeth. The paralyzing fear that had gripped him moments ago was gone, or perhaps he was merely hiding it very well.

"That whole religion thing had been going so well. I mean that, guys, it was a stroke of genius.” He applied flattery like holy oil, and he could see the prideful Archangels soak it up. "You've managed to not only secure the vast majority of the planet for your side, but you've also caused more misery in this world than Hell could have _dreamed_ of. Do you know? I took credit for quite a bit of it. Funny, isn't it? You doing my work for me.”  
  
Michael was frowning, not sure if she was being insulted or not. But she did like having her efforts appreciated, her ego stroked. “I thought it was rather brilliant, myself. But really, we hardly had to do anything once the ideas took root. Humans are so potent, such fertile ground to be ploughed, and they don't even know it.”  
  
Crowley eyed Uriel. The one who planned, the one who schemed. He wasn't sure if they could be said to be more guilty of the Archangels' crimes than the other three, but Crowley was certain none of it would have happened without their weaponized intelligence.  
  
“It seems to me that neither of us would benefit from indiscretion.” Uriel offered, “If Hell found out, imagine what they'd do to you...”  
  
“Imagine what they'd do to_ you_.” The demon countered. Hell didn't care to be played for a fool.  
  
Gabriel sighed, “Oh, Crawly, we were hoping if we sent your little friend here to keep an eye on you, he'd keep you out of trouble, but that was a mistake we won't make again. We couldn't kill an Archangel, even a selfish, worthless one who refused to do his part,” Gabriel added, “But smiting a demon? That's just a perk of the job.”  
  
“You won't.” Crowley replied.

The pewter-haired Archangel chuckled, “We won't? Look at you, little star-maker, what do you make now? I think we'll do anything we want with you, and with him.” Gabriel gestured at Aziraphale, whose eyes were glowing like the rings on a gas range with contained fury. He held his tongue, letting Crowley speak, weave the trap.

Having distanced herself slightly from her siblings, Iophiel was frowning, her senses tingling with unseen danger.

“You won't, because I've left instructions with my lawyers.” Crowley continued, “Several of 'em. And if you do something to me to prevent me from calling them and canceling my instructions, they'll be sending special packages to our respective offices. I've recorded everything.”  
  
Michael seethed, “You'll be ruined, too, you lackwit!” She shut up when Uriel waved her hand dismissively,  
  
“A written account? Really, Crawly? That's pathetic. Nobody would believe your word over ours. We'd just tell them you were a demon trying to sow discord, like your kind do, and it would go right in the trash.” Uriel laughed.

“Perhaps. If it were written.” Crowley snapped his fingers, but if it had done something, it wasn't obvious.  
  
Ah, that snap, the spring loosed, the mouse caught, Aziraphale smiled in anticipation.  
  
The Archangels' attention was riveted, “What do you mean, _recorded_?” Gabriel asked suspiciously, “You recorded your own memories? How?” Pursing his lips, he wondered if the demon was somehow lying through the seal's magic.  
  
“Oh, no.” And this time Crowley laughed, “No, nothing so fantastic. I've recorded our conversation, here. The truth spell guarantees the files won't be tampered with, a 'seal' of authenticity, if you will.”  
  
“But-” Uriel looked around, spotting a small object taped up on the wall, with blinking lights and a shiny black eye focused on the circle where she stood. She raised a hand to destroy it.  
  
The red-haired demon smirked, “Oh yes, be my guest. Good luck finding them all. But it's too late. It's already being sent out via live upload, oodles of copies on the cloud by now. You know, the local data coverage is exceptionally good for such a small town.”  
  
Gabriel all but literally fumed, “This is your revenge!? Petty blackmail? Congratulations, you've managed to become _more_ of a nuisance...”

“I had thought about killing you. Especially you, Gabriel, you absolute wanker.” Crowley commented, pleasant and conversational, as if noting what a nice day it was. “But you know, then I'd have all of Heaven up my arse, probably trigger a new apocalyptic war if Hell decided to back me up, and honestly what I _really_ want is a vacation. So here we are... It may be petty, but I'll take my wins where I can get 'em.”

“Cra – Crowley.” Michael's tone was a warning, one which failed to impress.

“Oh no, go on, 'sister'. Piss me off just a little bit, I'll only send a copy to the Metatron, perhaps. Try me.”  
  
Unable to keep his tongue still any longer, Aziraphale took his mate's hand and purred, “Oh, I really think you should.”

It was Iophiel who raised her voice to say, “No!” She had stepped back from the circle and spread her wings, the primaries glistening iridescent in the angled shaft of sunlight, and over her head she held her divine weapon, a slender flamberge, its fiery blade already heated red. “Stop this. Stop!”

“But,” repeated Uriel, an edge of panic in their voice.

Iophiel twirled the sword in her fingertips, extinguishing its flame. She lowered the blade to the floor at her feet and knelt, “I am done with this.” She spoke to her siblings, but mostly Uriel, “I kept your secret, I was loyal, I was prepared to _stay_ loyal, but I don't believe we did the right thing. I haven't for a long time, and this is the end of it.”  
  
“You've got to be kidding me!” This from Gabriel, whose aura was beginning to crackle with anger, “Are you going to turn on us now? To do what? Join up with these eternal pains in my ass!?”  
  
Silver eyes closed for a moment behind a fall of ebon hair, and Iophiel breathed evenly to find calm, “No, brother. No. I'm just not going to be a part of this anymore.”

Michael eyed the sword, “You can't just walk away, you're as implicit in this as the rest of us!”

“Maybe not. But I can change things here, now.” She stood, taking her weapon in hand, and approached Crowley, who had been briefly struck speechless by the turn of events.

Aziraphale held firmly to his demon's hand, unsure of Iophiel's intent, but Crowley was unafraid, and offered the Archangel a subtle smile.

“This won't make me forgive you.”  
  
“I'm not asking you to.”

“Oh, oh _fine_!” Gabriel interrupted, “What now? What does this all get you? Do you want to be reinstated in Heaven? Is that the sad fantasy you're holding onto, Crowley? Because...”  
  
A single look from the demon who had once been his sibling shut Gabriel up. Crowley sneered derisively, “I've seen what heaven's become. I wouldn't go back with you if you _begged_ me. No, I've made peace with this. But not with what you did to Aziraphale.”  
  
A brief glance toward the principality, who was wriggling like a puppy out of sheer excitement.

“Surely...” Gabriel began.

“He's still an angel, for whatever that means anymore. I want you to give back what you took from him. All of it. Make him like he was.”

“I can't!” Gabriel whined, “Nobody can, it's not like his memories were just bottled up, they're gone!” He looked toward the two siblings he still had on his side, but they had also backed off, confused by what was happening here. They had lost somehow, without glorious battle or clever strategy, something had happened, and they had lost. They'd run dry of smug comments now that they weren't in control of the situation, and now they just wanted to leave.

Iophiel turned to Crowley, “He's telling the truth, brother. We can't restore who he was. But I can give him back some of _what_ he was. Aziraphale, if you'll allow me.” She offered the blonde angel her free hand.

Gabriel barked, “Don't you dare!”

“Don't I? I think it's time I dare a lot of things.” Iophiel smiled, more at peace than she'd felt since the first dawn on Earth. She smiled at Aziraphale when he hesitantly accepted.

“I also think, Gabriel, that there should be some changes made. It's high time we start acting like agents of good, and get to cleaning up the mess _we've_ made here. That's what I'm going to do. If any of you wish to join me, I'd welcome your company.”  
  
“Iophiel!”  
  
“And I think you need to shut up now.” She turned her back to the sputtering Gabriel, lowering her voice to speak to the angel and demon at her side, “I know it's not much, I doubt anything within my power could begin to make amends, but I can at least make sure you're left alone. Even if there's another war, you won't be called upon.”

“It's something,” Crowley granted.

A nod, and the librarian asked quietly, “Would you permit me to take us somewhere safe where I can perform a greater miracle? For Aziraphale. It does require a rather large one.”

Aziraphale felt along the edges of the truth spell he and Crowley had carefully crafted. They'd updated it, altered it slightly for the current century, for the technology they were using. But they also knew quite well that Archangels would be able to suppress a regular Angelic truth seal, and at Crowley's suggestion, they'd incorporated demonic magic as well. The resulting hybrid seal was very nearly the same in form and function, but included several stealthy fail-safes. Unless the Archangels noticed the changes and consciously disabled them, their desire to prevent the seal from working wouldn't be very effective.

“I believe her.” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley nodded, “Alright then.” He gestured to Iophiel. “Permission granted.”

There was a sudden pop of vacuum where three human-shaped beings had just been. Three other human-shaped beings were staring at that spot, silent for several seconds, before Gabriel turned around and threw both of his hands up in the air.  
  
“That was an entire _fucking_ disaster!”

-*-


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get a nice little bow on top, and everyone has the happiest ending the budget will allow.

7

A full moon sat heavy and low over the snowy clearing where Iophiel had brought them. The surrounding forest was mostly pine, with rolling mountains beyond, suggesting the American Northeast, somewhere in the Allegheny ranges perhaps.

Iophiel held her hands out to Aziraphale again, and this time when they touched, there was a charge in the air that spread outward from those points of contact. It made Crowley's hair stand on end, and ignited an ember of jealousy in his demonic heart.

No words were spoken, no rituals performed, merely this touch, and the transference of something holy from one body to another. A gift given willingly and accepted with wonder and curiosity.  
  
“Oh!” said Aziraphale, and Crowley took a step back, though not yet sure why.

Again, “Oh!” and the angel's wings snapped out of their hiding place. It felt like he were being filled, power flowing into places he hadn't known were empty, inflating him like a balloon. He was sure he was expanding, swelling, his mortal corporation being lifted, buoyed upward. His wings grew larger, brighter, forcing Crowley to shield his eyes.

Aziraphale's luminous primaries stretched out until they brushed the trees circling the. He flapped, and felt an odd echo run through him with the movement. Turning to inspect his wings, he was surprised to find he had four. This second pair were not white, but rather a soft, pale grey; mourning dove grey, and the primaries had a subtle sheen resembling freshwater pearls.  
  
“Oh my...”

The angel's vision blurred and shifted, and suddenly he was looking down from quite a bit higher up.

He looked down and could see his own human body from the outside. It looked intact and still in its usual proportions, suspended within a second, semi-transparent outer form his mind now occupied. This being stood on mighty paws, with a long mane of white curls flowing over powerful leonine forelimbs. Iophiel stood between those paws. She seemed small and delicate from this vantage point, her arms passing through his chest to where her hands still held tight to his corporeal ones.

Aziraphale knew this shape, though he had rarely seen it. It was the divine manifestation of the Cherubim, intended to inspire fear and awe in humans. It felt strange to wear this form, not for its newness, but its familiarity.

Iophiel released the angel's hands and let him float back down to the ground.  
  
Aziraphale shivered as the flow of energy ebbed off. He returned to his own body, the half-realized Cherubic shape fading away, and his two sets of wings folding themselves comfortably into their extraplanar storage space.

“How do you feel?” the Archangel asked.

Closing his eyes, and taking a deep breath of clean, cold air, Aziraphale answered her, “Incredible. Like I've had a sense restored that's been missing for so long I forgot how it felt. Like... I know why I was made and placed in the world.”

He looked at Crowley then, smiling like the sun rising over the arctic circle after six months of twilight, “You were the reason.”

Crowley made a sound in his throat, that 'You're being sappy, it's gross, stop that. (But don't stop that.)' kind of noise, and blushed.  
  
“You are no longer a Principality, Aziraphale,” Iophiel told him, “You will henceforth have no title in the Heavenly ranks. But I have returned some of the power that was stolen from you, as much as I was able. You were created a Cherub, meant to guard Eden along with my sibling, Raphael, the first gardener.”  
  
“You helped him build the garden,” Crowley added, “The rivers, every waterfall, every rapid, the glittering pebbles in the riverbeds, those were yours.”  
  
“I wish I could remember, love.”

Iophiel placed her hand on Aziraphale's shoulder. “I think you will, one day.” She smiled, “And I think it's time I sent you home. Don't you?”  
  
“Oh.” It was odd to think that would be the end of it, yet he found himself wanting nothing more. “That sounds lovely.”  
  
Crowley nodded. “A quiet spot in Hyde Park would be ideal.”

“Be well. I don't expect I'll see you again. And I think that's for the best.” Iophiel's other hand came to light rest on Crowley's arm. There was love in her touch, old and sorrowful, and it felt like a knife sinking into his flesh.

There was a subtle lurch under their feet, and both the Archangel and the moonlit glade bled away. Sunshine flooded in on yellow-brown January grass and bare oaks; they were back in London. Crowley looked at Aziraphale and smiled. Then laughed. “How... how did we do that?”

“I told you, my love, you are exceptionally smart.” The newly Not-Quite-A-Cherub lifted his beloved's slim hand and kissed its knuckles. “Maybe now you'll listen to me.”

-*-

Were it only a couple of decades ago, Crowley would have had to spend hours calling each of his lawyers individually, but the wonders of the modern era had brought such lovely things as mass messaging lists, and with a few touches to a device he called a 'phone', but which was so unbelievably complicated and small that to Aziraphale it bordered on magic, his new instructions were sent.

The incriminating files were burned to USB keys and locked in safety deposit boxes in seven different countries, each box lined with symbols to prevent theft and preserve the keys, should they need them in, say, another six thousand years. All except one. That one was ported to a medium more suited for the Celestial plane, and a special courier was summoned to deliver it.

“They pissed me off, a _lot_.” Crowley explained, sitting on a bench at the edge of the Serpentine, “And I never said I wouldn't send it upstairs.”

“To the Metatron, I take it?” Aziraphale, sharing the bench, paused until his companion nodded. “They're a tactful being, if anyone up there is. There will be a trial, as I'm sure you know. They'll probably want you to be there.”

“I'll go, if you're with me.”  
  
“Of course, darling. But, what about Iophiel?”  
  
Crowley frowned, “What _about_ her? Look, if I'm asked to speak, maybe I'll suggest leniency. But she was as much a part of it as the rest. She was the one who locked Raphael up inside me. Why should I give her mercy?”

The ex-Principality considered, plucking at his fingers, “I thought, perhaps, the good she could do in the world, if she really wanted to make it better, might outweigh the benefit of justice.”  
  
“_Perhaps_. I might suggest that her sentence be carried out that way. I could make a good argument for it.” Crowley put his hand over Aziraphale's to soothe them. “After everything you saw, you were still ready to be kind.”

“I wanted to slaughter them, if I thought it was possible.” Aziraphale confessed. “I've just gotten so used to their imperious bullying that I'm able to control my temper.”  
  
“Don't be disappointed, pet, this was a pretty big win. People rarely get what they actually deserve in the real world. Those great dramatic revelations of justice and karma really only happen in books.”

Aziraphale hummed acknowledgment, “So does real closure. They're still in Heaven, Crowley. They could still find some way to hurt us, someday.”

“I don't think that's going to be a problem anymore. There may not be justice in Heaven, but there blessed well is pride.” Crowley laughed, “Care to get something to eat? There's a French patisserie on the other side of the park, their croissants nearly make _me_ drool.”

“Ooh, you wily tempter. Yes, please!”

-*-

They were on their own side, the world continued to not end, and it was delightful. Aziraphale bit into a pastry so crisp it shattered against his teeth like spun glass, the butter and flour of it melting on his tongue, and he made a noise that Crowley coveted the way the angel coveted his books.  
  
“Do you feel that?” the demon asked, after an indulgent moment of food-based voyeurism.

“I feel a lot of things, Crowley dear. You'll need to be more specific.”

“It's … nothing. I mean, there's nothing where there used to be something. I think I've been cut off.”

“Cut off? How?”

“From Hell. It's like something's disconnected. Oh, oh... you don't think?” He focused on his cooling latte, and it began to bubble. Crowley exhaled in relief. “Be funny if they'd managed to revoke that.”

“It really wouldn't be.” Aziraphale paused, “But I do feel odd, now that you mention it. It's like I've been hung up on in the middle of a phone call. But I still have the power Iophiel gave me, it's like a sunburn under my skin. I would know if it were gone.”  
  
“You've never had a sunburn.” Crowley observed.  
  
“Well, but that doesn't mean I can't imagine what it feels like.”

The demon finished his chocolate mousse, deliberately holding the tiny spoon with exaggerated primness, before curling his tongue around it to capture the last rich traces. He put the utensil down next to the little swan-shaped cup, “I think I like it. It feels like I'm actually free. Not just being ignored, but actually out of their influence.”

“What happens to a demon who gets cut off from Hell?”

“I don't know. What happens to an angel who gets hung up on by Heaven? Well, we know the answer to that. Usually they Fall. But you haven't, so now what?”

“I am still connected to The Almighty, I think that's the difference. What I've done, even rebelling, has been out of love and the desire to serve Them.” The angel ran a buttery fingertip over the edge of his plate. “But so was what you did.”  
  
“The road to Hell.” Crowley mused. “I find it wonderfully ironic, that if there were ever going to be justice in Heaven, we would be its authors.”  
  
“Maybe that's the real beauty of the universe. Irony.”

Crowley laughed, and then Aziraphale laughed, and even though it wasn't really funny, they laughed even harder.

-*-

_Raphael watched the first sunset, Daniel and Asrafil at his sides, sharing with him this experience. The sun had begun to paint the sky in streaks of warm hue as it dipped behind the budding outline of the newly-made Tree. Its blue-green branches not yet in leaf. _

_The dawn had been breathtaking in a different way, here, the colours spread and deepened, and the stars, all of the, that the Archangels had made together, started to appear at the deep blue edge of the world._

_Raphael looked toward Daniel, who was smiling, enjoying the view, the sun washing his ash-grey hair in pink and gold. The Principality's face was calm and reflective; it was a spectacular view, yes, but it was merely beauty. The Archangel then turned to Asrafil, and could see unbridled wonder in their wide eyes. In them, Raphael recognized something even more incredible and precious than the sunset._

…

_Raphael observed his assistant as they filled the jeweled riverbeds with water. Four rivers came together in the Garden, meeting at its centre, where they fed the Great Tree. He marveled at the beauty Asrafil had wrought with moving liquid: the singing of a cascade, the glorious roar of a waterfall, the scintillation of mist in sunlight._

_Kneeling, the Archangel bid small fish to the new rivers, and when he dipped his hand into the water, the fish followed his fingertips as he sowed moss and algae in between the pebbles to feed them. They were beautiful, gossamer and metallic, and Raphael was reminded of the quiet being who had made them_

_Though his head was bowed, Asrafil knew the Seraph's sadness, and put an arm around Raphael's slender shoulders. “I miss Daniel, too. I hope he comes back.”_

“_Yes. We can hope.”_

…

_Asrafil smiled as he approached his mentor with cupped hands. Raphael turned to regard his companion with a smile, “What do you have?”_

_Opening his fingers, Asrafil revealed a small translucent stone of lustrous golden hue, it caught the light and glowed in his palm. “I made this for you, It reminds me of your eyes.”_

_Tears of happiness fell onto the stone, and its colour deepened tenfold._

…

_Raphael kept a vigil as Asrafil slept, curled like a kitten. In the slowness of the young world, sleep was easy. He smiled at how his cherished helper squirmed and giggled at her dreams. He no longer gave in to sleep as he once had, because he knew there was something worrisome brewing outside the Garden. Turmoil, conflict was coming, but he was not willing to expose Asrafil to it. The Cherub was innocent, and if he had anything to say about it, she would remain so._

_..._

_Asrafil and Raphael walked together in the Garden. The path was yielding and plush under their feet, tiny plants springing back up, unharmed, after their passage. Ahead, they could see the first man and woman under the Tree of life, which was festooned with fragrant white and pink blossoms. One day, when the time was right, there would be fruit. Raphael did not yet know what it would look like, how it would taste or smell, but she knew it would be the most perfect and important fruit in all of Creation._

_The humans were wrapped around each other, sleepy and content, and the Seraph looked down at the Cherub at her side. She took his hand and led him away, through winding trails and into a wilder, denser part of the Garden, to a small dell, lined in timothy-grass and edged with lilies and meadowsweet. With unspoken consent, she drew Asrafil close and tilted his head up to kiss him._

_He was willing, and in that perfumed nest, they lay down together as Adam and Eve had. It was not perfect, it started as a clumsy reaching and giggling and learning, but through joyful experiment, they figured it out, they got there, and eventually it became perfect._

Aziraphale opened his eyes. The shared memories still finding places to fit within him. It was morning, amorous birdsong and the scent of spring came in through an open window.

Crowley was there, turned onto his side and propped on one elbow, watching as his mate returned to the waking world. His long, unruly hair caught the early sunlight and transformed it into a burning red halo. Aziraphale admired him with unfettered awe and desire.

“We were both wrong, he enjoyed that very much.” Laying a slender palm to the side of the other's face, “Won't promise anything, love, but I think I'm ready to have that conversation.”  
  
“Oh, my... I will do my best.”

With unspoken consent, the loving demon leant down and kissed his lustful angel.

-*-

2025

A demon walked the corridors of Heaven. They had an air of purposeful direction, and carried a large brown envelope in both clawed hands. This envelope bore no postage, and was slightly singed around the edges, as was the demon delivering it.

Heaven's once-stark walls were now in calm pastels, this one a light blue with grey trim. There were also potted plants, tasteful paintings, and comfortable chairs to break up the oppressive architecture; a fresh facade of congeniality. The demon traded civil greetings with angels they encountered on their way along, and some of them were downright cheerful about it.

They passed an open glass door, where one such being was unpacking a box of small items onto a broad desk. The fresh lettering next to the door read 'Virtue Phanuel. Director of Strategy'. Phanael waved at them, and they smiled back.

Things had changed, alright. They wondered if it would stick.

The courier demon continued, past other offices with newly changed designations: Cherub Sandalphon, Chief of Security; Throne Raziel, Chief of Records. Until they approached a door that still read 'Gabriel'. But more specifically, 'Dominion Gabriel, Correspondence'.

An Archangel can only fall so far, the demon supposed. They knocked.  
  
There was no waiting for a response. “Come in.”  
  
When they entered the office, Gabriel smiled and stood. “Ah, Penemue, wonderful to see you! What have you brought me today?”

The courier demon held out his delivery, “A letter from Lord Beelzebub, sir. And might I say, whatever you wrote to them has really perked them up, they've been buzzing about with more energy than I've seen in centuries.”

“Really?” Gabriel grinned,“Excellent.” He took the envelope and signed for it, a sparkle of violet light leaping from his fingertip. “Thank you, Penemue. A pleasure as always.”

“As always, sir. Until next time.” The demon winked, and took the quick way down; a sooty circle formed around their feet, swallowing them up completely before healing over without a trace.

Gabriel opened the envelope. The letter inside was actually very short for the size of it. Written in neat, elegant cursive, using quill and ink, and there were trails of tiny footprints across the paper.

_To my esteemed opponent._

_Your letter was highly unexpected, but I must admit, you have deeply intrigued me._

_Firstly, let me extend, to the limit of my ability, condolences on your demotion. I would be lying if I tried to tell you it didn't please me greatly to hear of, but I can be both delighted and sympathetic. I also admit to having a wild hair to learn how you managed to lose the status you've enjoyed for literally the entirety of existence, but I suppose curiosity will have to be yet another of my torments. Do you think?_

_As for the body of your letter, that came with its own charming surprises, I half expected you to come tumbling into my lap with scorched wings for half of what I was reading. The language alone, Gabriel! _

_I would not have imagined an angel of the Lord to suggest such blasphemous things, it was borderline lurid. But if you're correct, and we are all just being, as you say 'fucked with', it seems like a moot point. The gloves are off._

_Hell is terrible, you've been here enough to know. Heaven is also terrible. The difference between the two has become thin and grey and pointless. And maybe you're right. I do not know what 'Calvinball' is, but I assume it's something equally stupid._

_You proposed a scenario in which Heaven and Hell put our grievances aside and join forces against a mutual enemy. It seems improbable. But before the world failed to end, I would have said it was impossible. It appears nothing is truly impossible. I find myself struggling with the idea, it goes against the very grain of my being, demonic or not. However, if there are no rules, the only way we can win is to stop playing the game._

_I would like to discuss this further, in person. If we are destined to work together... maybe dinner is appropriate?_

_Your nemesis,  
Lord Beelzebub, Duke of Hell._

At the bottom of the page was an addendum, which simply stated 'I have a telephone now' and a string of occult symbols, the infernal version of a phone number.

Gabriel locked the letter in his desk and took a walk. He wandered through the assignment hall, now empty but for the rotating sphere of the Earth. Uriel and Iophiel were down there, on that blue and green ball, working to remediate the damage religion had caused. There was no undoing their actions, but they could help humanity realize what they could be, what they should have been.

Things continued to move slowly in Heaven, compared to the frantic human bustle below, but their trial had been surprisingly quick. Inside of five years, certain beings had been humiliatingly reprimanded and demoted, and others had risen to take their places. Gabriel, as the leader, had faced the most severe judgment, yet he had not fallen. His punishment had been humbling, not because it was painful, which it was, but because he could see that it was just.

No longer an Archangel, Gabriel no longer had authority, but he did have valuable skills, he could yet be useful. Yes, he would need to work hard to regain the Heaven's trust, but he was offered mercy: the opportunity to succeed or fail as his own merits would dictate.

He continued on, making his way down to the barracks, where Michael had resumed training the celestial soldiers. He was now merely a captain, a soldier among soldiers, but he retained seniority, he could teach. And they would soon need agents who knew how to help and protect, as well as fight. Gabriel stood abreast of his brother, who was supervising a group of sparring angels from a railed platform overlooking the yard.  
  
“Beelzebub is coming along.” Gabriel said. “I'll be meeting them Earthside. I'm sure they'll get on board.”  
  
“That's good, I suppose.” The captain leaned against the railing, unsatisfied.  
  
“I would think it is.” Gabriel snapped, “You know, we have a _goal_, Michael! Making a future for ourselves, getting the band back together. Isn't that what you want?”  
  
“Have we really learned nothing?” Michael implored, sadly. “Are we just going to keep coming up with new Great Plans until they destroy us?”

Uriel had asked much the same before he'd left to join Iophiel, and Michael knew how foolish this was to pursue. Yet... yet. It seemed inevitable. There was no other way it could go. They would never be free, they would never stop being forced to play an increasingly cruel sport for a singular spectator who didn't seem to care which side won.

When Gabriel remained silent, Michael answered the question himself, “It looks like we don't have a choice.”

There would be another war. Not with Hell, not with Earth, but with God.

-*-*-


	8. Fan Art:Knowledge (pt 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Crowley that is honestly frustrating me.

When I read the book and pictured the characters, Crowley always had a kind of catlike, delicate look. pale, not quite healthy - like he had a trace of cirrhosis, hair the colour and sleekness of wild mink, shoulder length and straight, in a ponytail (as was fashionable for Yuppies in the 90s.) I tried to keep that Renaissance painting androgyny, the feline qualities, but I have a definite -thing- for red hair, so that got to stay. Not that I coloured it, but you know.


	9. Fan Art:Knowledge (pt.2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one came out better, but less polished.

I always thought Azi would be taller, or the same height as Crowley. He gave me the impression of being large - not /fat/ but stout and tall and slightly imposing. The way he interacted with Crowley was almost avuncular, even though Crowley was at least the same age, or possibly older, like he felt somehow responsible for Crowley - But then, he didn't smite the demon, so perhaps he is.


	10. Addendums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to put some random thoughts in this section.

Addendums (Feel free to not read this.)

...

So I am very tempted to write a sequel about the lust discussion. I'm still anxious about the idea of writing E for this pair, but there's a lot of reasons I want to. I have some pretty funny ideas.

What if Crowley eats just as much as Aziraphale, but not as a human-shaped being? Maybe instead, he only eats every month or two, but it's an entire goat, and he has to sleep it off in snake form for a week.

What if Crowley forgot what some of his human organs were for, and just stopped manifesting them so his trousers would fit better?

What if Madame Tracy felt like they needed some urging and started sending them objects in the mail which they had nearly zero understanding of? Oh sure, dildos are straightforward enough, but what's this thing with the clamps and the rubber hooks?

...

What if people ship Beez and Gabe because one is a fly and the other is a piece of shit?

...

I was thinking about how the line of prose that’s supposedly about Burbage in the Globe scene doesn’t make a lot of sense, as the fellow on stage barely looks 20. Age could wither, but hadn't the chance yet.

It occurs to me that ‘custom’ can mean social traditions, but it could also mean something with which one has become familiar over a long time. Like meeting a very old friend. I just mean, Crowley can't come up with lucid, eloquent turns of phrase like that on the spot. He's not capable. He’d have to had been mentally assembling that and mulling it over and waiting for an opportunity to say it for a while.

I also think he intended for Will to steal it. Theft is a sin after all. But it would make his sentiment immortal, even if it wasn't recognized.

...

I highly recommend Davidson's 'A Dictionary of Angels'. My copy is not in the shape it was when I first got it, it's been very well loved. Not that I dog-ear or mark the pages, but two decades of the gentlest handling will wear the edges of any book.

\---

In the mythology, both Sandalphon and Gabriel are Cherubs. Interestingly, angels can hold more than one rank. Gabriel is a Cherub and a Seraph and a 'Great Angel', whereas Sandalphon is a Cherub who was actually a human before God uplifted him and his brother.

Apparently Sandalphon got his angelic name because he has a <strike>shoe fetish</strike> fondness for leather sandals.<strike>  
</strike>

...

There's been some off-canon speculation about Aziraphale here, which I had been holding onto for _a while_, and what made my mind up about that was the meaning of the suffix 'Az' or 'As' in Hebrew. Old Hebrew is very context-driven, and depending on certain factors, the suffix can mean 'strength/that which strengthens' or 'help/that which helps'.

...

I read about the prototype character from the original short story, before Terry got on board and they split him into two: A demon even more inept than Crowley, with the British prissiness of Aziraphale. They really are two halves of a whole idiot.

...

It's really Crowley's fault that books exist. He introduced knowledge to humans (although Penemue was the one who taught them to write,) an apple and a book are both symbols of the same thing, the very same thing their entire story revolves around, which is knowledge - and the ultimate power that knowledge affords: Choice.

What I really wonder, though, is if they'd ever actually address it, the fact that Crowley is responsible for /everything/ that Aziraphale loves about the human world. Cakes and clothes and wine and music and _books_. Bookshops, for that matter. Would Crowley be insufferably smug about it and mention it in arguments?

...

In some of the shots of Crowley's flat, you can see what /really/ looks like Westminster Palace in the background. That palace is in the southern part of Soho, right on the river. There's no way it should be right in the window of an apartment in Mayfair. I'm just saying, he very definitely lied on his tax and census forms.

...

Now, I do draw. But I haven't drawn these characters before, and they won't look like the actors. Oh, Mr. Sheen is actually very close to what I'd imagined. Though I had pictured someone tall and substantial, gentle, yet slightly imposing, able to fix a person with a look and give off a distinct /dominant/ aura if he wanted to. Mr. Tennant... well he's further from my mark. He did a very good job, the body language, the expression, really good. I like the hair. Some of the hair. Oh god burn that beard forever. Anyway, I had always pictured him as more delicate, finer featured. And younger, too vain to let his body age, as the book suggested. 

The book also gave me the impression that even though Crowley would have been the older of the pair, Aziraphale took him in an almost fatherly hand. That gave me the idea that Aziraphale had been made /responsible/ for Crowley, meant to look after him.

...

It's interesting to me, but their personalities have nearly switched places between the series and the book. Book Crowley is a fidgety anxiety mess, while series Crowley is more put together. It's the other way around for Aziraphale, whose book personality is like a wise uncle, and in the series he's a fidgety anxiety mess. I decided to go dutch and make them both wise-ish-in-different-ways, cool when it mattered, weird-avuncular anxiety messes.

...

On the topic of Raphael,

There are really quite a few things that put him in the right place, several interesting bits of lore for your consideration:  
  
> He was one of the seven great Archangels present for Creation. All the other angels were created after, and so only those seven could have taken part in building stars. (Some stories say there were only four at the beginning, but he is named as one of those as well.)

> He was also the original guardian of the Tree of Life, and yet oddly absent when the Serpent offered Eve an apple.

> Angel of science, healing, and knowledge. Seems like it'd be in his wheelhouse to gift humanity with the first knowledge.  
  
> The passage 'Raphael is charged to heal the Earth, and through him an abode is created for Man' might be interpreted as referring to Eden?

> Raphael is symbolized by serpents. There are two serpent symbols involved: The Caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius. The Caduceus is a winged sword with two serpents wound around it, and is also associated with Hermes, who shares with Raphael the planet Mercury. While the Rod of Asclepius, a single serpent wound around a staff, is the historic symbol of healers and apothecaries. Over the course of history, the two symbols have been conflated and combined, and both are used to represent Raphael.

> The Caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius are both similar to Crowley's sigil.

> Probably a Seraph, Raphael's exact rank is cryptic (Milton's opinion notwithstanding,) but descriptions put him equal in power and authority to Seraphim, which also apparently manifest as flying, flaming serpents.

> Often associated with Earth, described in a way that suggests a middle nature between Heaven and Hell, Raphael is sometimes invoked as a guide to souls going to the underworld (Sheol), and is occasionally called a demon or a beast. He is described as 'sociable' and has had more positive interactions with humans than most angels.

> Raphael is absent from the series' heavenly cast. Which isn't so much evidence as convenient.

> Crowley, a supposedly lowly demon /stops time/, and generally does not look, act, or think like any of the other demons in the show. He's not the same type of creature at all.

The only Seraph we /know/ to have fallen was Satan, and he was hardly turned into a standard demon, either. Satan remained an angel – fallen angel, dark angel, but still, not wholly a demon, which sets a precedence. And I thought, well, what if Seraphim were too powerful to completely fall, and instead they had to be convinced they were harmless to keep them out of trouble after what happened with Satan? And that became 'let's wipe his memory' And 'no no, don't wipe it, I have a better idea...'

...

I also thought about that whole 'secret princess' trope, and how it usually ends with the hero getting back what they'd lost, or gaining wealth and power and gloating over their former oppressors, or marrying a prince, or something that pulled them out of their initially-assumed mundanity. But what if it didn't? What if the princess never gets to go home? I wanted to convey that Crowley isn't a 'chosen one', he never inherits the kingdom or gains anything from this but the ability to move on.

...

Mild spoiler: Daniel appears both in Heaven and Hell, and I feel like I made that too subtle. I wanted him to be an illustration of how Hell broke the fallen.

...

So some folks were saying that Aziraphale takes his tea without sugar, because he had asked for it thusly in one scene. I suspect these people were American, because tea isn't just /tea/ in England. There are nuances. Whether or not you add sugar, milk, cream, honey, or lemon all depends on which tea you have. Is it Neem? Is it Oolong? Is it a cafe's breakfast Pekoe or a luxurious whole-leaf Kenyan? Flavor profiles vary from blend to blend, some citrusy, some woody, some malty. I would expect someone who was there for the development of tea to know each variety by scent alone, and know exactly how to dress it.  
  
...

To be continued.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes  
This is my first fic in years. It took forever. Feedback, questions, and speculation are very much welcomed.
> 
> Thank you to Ardate for being my beta-reader.
> 
> I have a tumblr for GO stuff now. It is 'Penemues-Quill'.
> 
> In my defense:
> 
> Not long after watching the series in July, I started thinking about this idea. I had actually started wandering into the notion that Crowley had been a Seraph on my own, and then I encountered a post on Tumblr that mentioned Raphael (At the time, I hadn't yet gone poking into the fandom, and I didn't realize what a shitshow that theory was going to instigate,) and it fit. Almost too well to be coincidence. I've included my reasons in the addendums.
> 
> In Heaven, the Archangels aren't actually speaking English. It's probably some kind of ancient precursor to Sumerian. But the spirit of 'bugger the plan' was there.
> 
> I probably did way too much research for this, and I hope I made the mythology accessible and natural. To be honest, I've been an angel lore nerd since I found out where my name came from. Which was... a few decades ago. 
> 
> I've also tried to capture a level of characterization somewhere between the book and the series, as I found plenty of flaws and things I liked in both, and a happier medium if I combined them.
> 
> In the end, I will say, this took a long time to write, and I nearly gave up on it /many/ times as I found out how big the fandom is and how many of the ideas I had are so well-used they're basically mulch. But I'm persistent, and now here we are. I hope you've enjoyed it.


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